Mandarin Gardens raises en bloc asking price to S$2.79b
Singapore
IF the owners of the Mandarin Gardens condominium have their way, the 99-year leasehold development in East Coast Road could be sold for a new record price of S$2.79 billion.
This is 12.5 per cent more than the original asking price of S$2.48 billion, and higher than the previous mark set by Pandan Valley's S$2.6 billion, according to a report published by TODAY on Sunday.
The report quoted Leonard Jayamohan, the spokesman for Mandarin Gardens' collective sale committee (CSC) as saying that it was recently discovered that the land on which the 1.07 million sq ft property is on was undervalued by more than S$300 million.
CSC chairman Vincent Teo on Sunday sent a bulletin to residents to explain that the committee had discovered the disparity after conducting a check of Mandarin Gardens' development baseline record with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
"The drastically increased baseline we received resulted in a corresponding reduction of the differential premium, which enable us to increase the reserve price, and at the same time reduce the per square foot per plot ratio for the developers," the TODAY report quoted him as saying in the letter.
As things stand, the owners of the 1,006-unit Mandarin Gardens could receive an average of S$2.8 million each should the sale eventually go through.
The TODAY report said that 62 per cent of residents are in favour of the collective sale, and that this latest move to raise the asking price could bring the figure closer to the 80 per cent requisite needed for an en bloc sale to take place.
