Rents here too high? Not so, say expats

Rents here too high? Not so, say expats 
Though rents are rising, expats say housing here is more affordable than in many major cities
By Melissa Sim 
 
SINGAPORE and Hong Kong are keen competitors in most things but when it comes to rent, there is only one winner.
Ask Mr Jason Longley, the regional manager of an insurance company. A year ago, he was paying $8,500 a month to rent a 900 sq ft apartment in Hong Kong’s prime Peak area.

Now he rents a 1,400 sq ft flat at Leonie Hill off Grange Road for just $5,500.

Mr Longley, 35, said Singapore’s cheaper rent was a key factor in his decision to relocate: ‘I definitely saw rent as a huge expense in Hong Kong.’

It also helps put into perspective the growing complaints about rising rents.

Urban Redevelopment Authority figures out last Friday showed that residential rents rose 10.4 per cent in the April to June quarter and are up 31.2 per cent over the past 12 months.

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But expats and agents told The Sunday Times that Singapore rents are still cheaper than in cities such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, London and New York.

A new survey by ECA International, a human resource consultancy, showed that rents here were 45 per cent less than the average price in Tokyo and 40 per cent less than in Hong Kong.

Singapore was the eighth most expensive place to rent a three-bedroom flat in Asia and 15th most expensive in the world - below Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York and London.

Investment banker Timothy Rice, who moved here last August, can testify to that.

Mr Rice, 27, pays $1,400 for a 350 sq ft studio in Kelantan Lane, near Bugis Junction. He said such a flat in an equivalent London location would still cost about the same figure - but in pounds. That is about $4,300.

Mr Masamitsu Kawasumi, 44, chief bank representative of the Development Bank of Japan, arrived here last month and was struck by the rental gap between Tokyo and Singapore.

Tokyo’s hip Roppongi area, with its many clubs and restaurants, has rents of about $13 per sq ft. Orchard Road’s $6 psf seems like a bargain.

Mr Thomas Preben Hansen, 32, chief executive of a listed marine firm, has lived in Shanghai and London: ‘Rents had become very cheap since 1997, and still have some catching up to do.’

He anticipated the rent squeeze and so bought a flat in Ewe Boon Road, off Bukit Timah Road, when he arrived in May.

A rental squeeze is exactly what Ms Isabelle Scali, 30, is bracing herself for. The public relations manager thinks Singapore is relatively more costly than London.

She pays $1,800 - nearly half of her salary - for a 1,200 sq ft flat at Sunshine Plaza off Prinsep Street.

In London, she said she spent just a third of her salary on a 700 sq ft studio flat in Balham, southwest London.

Ms Scali, who has signed a two-year lease, said rental costs will determine if she stays in Singapore.

Mr Rajesh Malkani, 43, who lived in Hong Kong for 13 years before moving here in 2005, said: ‘I don’t expect Singapore’s prices to reach Hong Kong levels because there is still land here. But I do expect them to go up.’

Mr Malkani, the global head of sales and business development at Standard Chartered, rents a 4,000 sq ft bungalow in Sunset Place. He would not reveal his rent but said it would get only half the space in Discovery Bay, which he feels is a comparable site in Hong Kong.

Given the decade-long property slump here, Mr Simon Smith, a senior director at Savills Asia Pacific, thinks rents will keep rising for the next one to three years.

But Mr Rice is not complaining: ‘Compared to Hong Kong, New York, London - Singapore is still cheap,’ he said.
 

Source : Straits Times - 29 Jul 2007

Home for family of three is entire 11-storey condo

Home for family of three is entire 11-storey condo 
They’re leaving the penthouse and 3 other maisonettes empty. Who needs to rent them out when you’re billionaire Peter Lim - and he won’t cash in on his $100m Ardmore Park property
By Lee Su Shyan 
 
EVEN for the ultra rich, condo living still means having to share facilities like pools and tennis courts with neighbours. Unless you’re billionaire Peter Lim, that is.
Mr Lim, his wife Cherie and his 85-year-old mother have an entire 11-storey condo - and pool - at Ardmore Park to themselves. No noisy neighbours, no barking dogs, no learner trumpeters practising in the apartment next door.

The family occupy an apartment close to 4,000 sq ft at the Abelia condo while the other three maisonettes and a 5,000 sq ft penthouse sit empty, although there is a security guard.

Not that Mr Lim needs the rent. He made his first fortune as a remisier and another bigger one with shrewd investments in palm oil.

And Abelia - Mr Lim owns 80 per cent and a pal the rest - is probably worth about $100 million given its primest of prime locations near Orchard Road.

But Mr Lim is resisting the temptation to sell up and cash in on the property boom as his mum does not want to move.

They like the location and the acres of space, including an underground carpark, which is handy given Mr Lim’s pricey collection of 10 cars, Ferraris included.

‘I have enough space to park them,’ Mr Lim said in a recent interview.

‘The road is also very wide with lots of entrances and exits. If I were to live at Orchard Turn, I would have to put up with the bad traffic. But here, there are many ways for me to avoid the congestion,’ he added.

And while he could sell the Abelia and buy a handful of houses, the posh bungalow life in District 10 doesn’t suit him.

‘Maybe it comes from the days when I was a remisier and travelling a lot in Malaysia, every four days of the week.

‘That has made me security conscious so I prefer to live in an apartment,’ he said.

The bumper gain he is sitting on at the Abelia must also enhance the home sweet home feeling. He bought the building in 1994 when Malayan Credit sold some of its investment properties, paying less than $14 million.

That is looking like a bargain to end all bargains, what with the land and building now worth as much as $100 million, going by recent sale prices.

Last month, SC Global forked out $262 million for The Ardmore, just a few doors away at 6 Ardmore Park. The price for the plot of 42,565 sq ft worked out to $2,337 per sq ft (psf) of potential gross floor area, including development charges.

Abelia has an estimated 40,000 sq ft of gross floor area, which could mean a sale price of about $100 million given the $2,500 psf it could command in today’s market, say some consultants.

Others sound a note of caution as the Abelia’s land area is far smaller at 14,000 sq ft, although as Knight Frank’s head of research and consultancy Nicholas Mak says: ‘The whole stretch of Ardmore Park is valuable land, and the price it can fetch will depend on the size and the shape of the parcel.’

Whatever price it might command, it will be small beer compared to Mr Lim’s stake of just under 5 per cent in palm oil giant Wilmar International, which is worth around $1 billion.

While Abelia is only 11 storeys, it dominates the area - at least for the next few months.

It is surrounded on three sides by the building site for Wheelock Properties’ 36-storey Ardmore Park II. The site was occupied by Habitat Two and Ardmore View, which were sold en bloc last year.

But Mr Lim is not fretting about the noise and dust as modern piling methods have reduced much of the impact.

Anyway, he can always get away for the day in one of his flashy cars sitting in that spacious underground carpark.
Source : Straits Times - 29 Jul 2007