Batched tenders work, up to a point

THIS week's simultaneous closing of state land tenders - or batched tender exercise - for three private housing sites has once again put the spotlight on whether they are effective in taming bids.

After a three-year hiatus, the government reintroduced batched tenders last December amid escalating private residential land prices paid by land-starved developers at both state tenders as well as private sector-driven collective sales.

Land is the vital raw material for developers and when they end up paying higher and higher prices for it, they would expect to sell the resulting units at higher and higher prices to recover their costs and make a profit.