Queen Astrid GCB site up for sale at S$49-51m

Singapore

A FREEHOLD Good Class Bungalow (GCB) redevelopment site in Queen Astrid Park is put up for estate sale by tender, with an indicative price of S$49-51 million.

This works out to S$1,399 to S$1,456 per square foot (psf).

Located off Holland Road, at the junction of Queen Astrid Park and Coronation Road West, the 35,011 sq ft site is currently occupied by a single-storey detached house.

Colliers International deputy managing director Grace Ng noted that the indicative price is "inviting" when compared to the peak median price of S$1,749 per sq ft recorded in the second quarter of 2014.

In the second quarter of this year, the median price for detached houses with land area of 15,000 sq ft (1,400 sq m) and above in District 9, 10 and 11 is S$1,410 per sq ft.

GCBs are highly coveted here due to its scarcity, with only some 2,500 islandwide.

Ms Ng said that the GCB site at 2 Queen Astrid Park, which is nestled in an exclusive neighbourhood zoned for GCBs, would not have been available for sale had it not been an estate sale.

The draw of the GCB site at 2 Queen Astrid Park lies in its exclusivity as it is on elevated grounds in tranquil surroundings with lush greenery, and yet with easy accessibility to Holland Village and Orchard Road.

"Furthermore, there is the potential for sub-division into two smaller plots, which is a rare attribute and would appeal to developers," Ms Ng said.

The GCB site enjoys wide double road frontages onto Queen Astrid Park and Coronation Road West, with good accessibility via the Ayer Rajah Expressway and Pan Island Expressway, as well as Holland Village and Buona Vista MRT stations. The tender for the site closes on Nov 12.

The second quarter of this year saw a surge in the number and value of transactions in GCB areas - to at least 11 deals totalling S$282.3 million, up from just four deals adding up to S$95.3 million in the first quarter.

In recent transactions involving GCBs, a 31,125 sq ft site at 45 Belmont Road was sold in June for S$1,420 per sq ft while a detached house sitting on a 21,426 sq ft site at 26 Bin Tong Park was also sold in the same month for S$1,400 per sq ft.

In July, a Queen Astrid Park GCB was sold for S$32 million or about $1,169 psf on a 27,373 sq ft freehold plot. This plot cannot be subdivided. The buyer was Liu and Lee Investment, a company led by the low-key property investor Liu Shek Yuen.

Elsewhere, prime Good Class Bungalow land along Nassim Road could come on the market in the next several months as the British High Commission mulls over the potential sale of unused land at the Eden Hall site.