Monday, 17 Aug 2020 08:35 AM MYTSINGAPORE, Aug 17 — There has been no successful collective sale of residential sites in Singapore since the Covid-19 pandemic started, bringing the en bloc market, which has been slowing down since the July 2018 cooling measures, to a halt.
With the July 2018 cooling measures significantly increasing land costs for developers and impacting the en bloc market, analysts said the Covid-19 pandemic is the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Another factor that could stir life into the en bloc market would be the availability of an effective Covid-19 vaccine, said Mr Mak.Fairhaven and Sophia Ville condominiums on Sophia Road, which are going for a combined indicative price of more than S$64 million
Yong Choon Fah, senior director of capital markets at property consultancy JLL, who is the marketing agent for Fairhaven and Sophia Ville, said they have received “a good level of interest” from developers and fund houses. Despite the muted demand for en bloc sites this year, some analysts are saying that owners have not dropped their asking prices.
Given that prices of private residential properties have decreased only by 0.7 per cent for the first half of this year, indicating that the property market is still pretty stable, owners of en bloc sites would not see the need to decrease theirs as well.