Mapletree Investments signs MOU with Japan’s ITOCHU Corp

Mapletree Investments signs MOU with Japan’s ITOCHU Corp

SINGAPORE: Mapletree Investments has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on a joint venture with Japan’s ITOCHU Corporation to undertake “Build-to-Suit” development projects for logistics tenants in Japan.

The companies agreed to extend their collaboration on investment and development of logistics, retail, industrial and commercial real estate projects in Japan, Singapore and the rest of Asia.

The extension of this strategic alliance for a further two years was done through another MOU.

This is the second extension of the MOU, which was first signed in October 2005 to collaborate in logistics real estate and extended in November 2007 through a Supplemental MOU (SMOU), in order to expand the scope of collaboration.

Mr Hiew Yoon Khong, CEO, Mapletree said: “We are delighted to continue our mutually successful and enriching partnership with ITOCHU. The October 2005 MOU and November 2007 SMOU facilitated Mapletree’s entry into the logistics real estate market in Japan.

“Through our collaboration with ITOCHU, Mapletree has been able to establish its footprint in the logistics real estate market in Japan with the acquisition of seven logistics assets in Japan, worth a total of S$571 million.

“ITOCHU is also now an investor in our Mapletree Industrial Trust (MIT) which holds the S$1.7 billion industrial assets privatised by JTC Corporation.”

- CNA/sc

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 07 December 2009

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Boutique hotel? No, it’s an office

Boutique hotel? No, it’s an office
Designer offices are coming up, offering firms a chic alternative
By Robin Chan

The plush lobby area of apbcOffices’ serviced office building, which was launched last month. Current customers of the serviced office say they were attracted by the image of a youthful and vibrant workplace that the premises projected.
YOU push back the large glass doors and step onto the glistening black floor inside an eight-storey office building at 75 High Street.

For a moment, it seems as though you have the wrong address.

You are greeted by a futuristically chic black interior juxtaposed with a stretched white polygon desk, bright white lights and some amorphously shaped objects.

It looks like a designer showroom. In fact, that is a reasonable conclusion as this is an office designed by architect Colin Seah of Ministry of Design fame.

Everyone has heard of boutique hotels, but boutique offices? Get used to the idea as they are starting to hit Singapore.

Behind this concept is serviced office provider apbcOffices chief executive Tony Chen, who believes demand is growing for creatively designed office space among the grey- and black-suited types.

The launch of the $5 million 75 High Street last month marked the first such serviced office concept in the region, said Mr Chen.

‘We’re passionate about coming up with creative concepts of how office space can be. Lifestyle has come in for a lot of sectors - where you stay, where you play, where you eat - so we dare to ask the market, why not where you work?’ said Mr Chen.

He got the idea for this after staying, quite by chance, at a boutique hotel in France that was run by Club Med.

ApbcOffices is a serviced office provider arm of Timothy Holdings and operates 12 offices in three countries in Asia.

Serviced offices are common in the business districts of large cities, providing a furnished office equipped with a wide range of services, including reception services and administrative support for companies that need a temporary location like start-ups, or firms working on a project basis.

While the serviced office space is saturated with many international and regional players in Singapore, including Servcorp and Regus, they tend to stick to conventional designs as businesses tend to be more conservative, Mr Chen said.

‘A lot of people will be surprised when they come up to our doors, because this doesn’t look like a serviced office, but this is the statement we want to make to the market.

‘The office doesn’t have to be conventional, because a lot of people want to work in a creative environment. It is not only more pleasant to work in, but it will also challenge you to come up with new ideas.’

So far, the office building, which opened last month with 44 rooms, has had an initial take-up rate of 35 per cent, with most clients from the IT and education sectors.

Current customers of the serviced office told The Straits Times they were attracted by the image of a youthful and vibrant workplace that it projected.

‘The designer appeal will give our customers and vendors a ‘wow’ feeling about the way we do business, which will set the tone for our products and services,’ said Mr Vincent Chia, regional director for the Asia-Pacific at Wrench Solutions, a software solutions company.

He said the meeting rooms gave the feeling of ‘entertaining in your own home and meeting in a club’.

Dr Elgin Tan, director of programme development and training at Smart Incubator, an education provider, said the location better reflected the company’s image of ’slighty out-of-the-box and a smarter way of thinking’.

The challenge is to make this concept popular among not just the creative folk, but also the mainstream business community.

‘I think creativity is inside a lot of people. They can be lawyers or business people, but a lot of people have this hidden desire for new things,’ Mr Chen said.

The rates are the same for a serviced office space in Raffles Place, and the company charges between $1,500 and $1,800 per work station - essentially, a fully equipped desk space.

The building also has several different-sized meeting rooms with plush interiors on its basement floor which clients can book to talk deals over coffee, cola or wine.

‘Just like travellers, when they go to resorts, they may want to stay in a boutique hotel because it is an experience,’ Mr Chen said. ‘So, not everyone may want to design their own home like a boutique hotel, but they don’t mind spending five days staying in a boutique hotel.’

Mr Chen admitted that it is a risky venture given the way businesses tend to go for the conservative and conventional.

But he believes that as Singapore grows as a cosmopolitan city, it needs an outlet for the creative sector of the business community.

‘The culture in apbcOffices is that we don’t want to be conventional. We want to give this option to the business community of not just working in a conventional environment.’

His next target is to launch a similar concept in Hong Kong.

Source : Straits Times - 07 December 2009

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S’pore, your home away from home

S’pore, your home away from home

EDB chairman wants global firms to make the island a long-term base

By Robin Chan

THE Economic Development Board’s new chairman has a message for global companies: make Singapore your home.

Mr Leo Yip hopes that companies from around the world will not put just an Asian office and a factory here but the whole works: international head offices, innovation centres and corporate universities.

Giving his first interview since assuming the chairmanship in July, 45-year-old Mr Yip spoke enthusiastically for nearly two hours on a range of issues, including developing new sectors for the economy like clean energy, digital media and lifestyle.

But what he is most excited about is honing the EDB’s ‘host-to-home’ strategy of making Singapore a long-term base for business, innovation and talent.

This concept was revealed in April this year amid Singapore’s deepest recession, by the EDB’s former chairman Lim Siong Guan and its international advisory council of business leaders.

Mr Yip has been working these past five months to translate this idea into concrete proposals to companies.

And he believes there is no better time to put this into action as there are two dynamic flows shaping the new global economic landscape.

Speaking at the EDB headquarters on the 27th floor of Raffles City Tower, Mr Yip, dressed in a button-down shirt and jacket, said the first trend is that global business and the global economy are becoming increasingly Asian, with Asia continuing to take a larger part of the world’s total trade, he explained, not just because of China and India, but emerging economies like Vietnam and Indonesia as well.

But heading in the other direction is another trend - of Asian businesses going global - which, Mr Yip believes, will pick up momentum in the years to come.

‘A lot more Chinese and Indian companies will be of the size, will have the aspirations, to go global.’

Mr Yip said that Singapore is strategically positioned to benefit from these two flows.

As global companies look for a suitable location in Asia to shape their product and market strategies for the region, they need a control tower for their senior management overlooking the region ‘from north-east China to south-west India and all the markets in between’.

‘Not just a Chinese market, not just an Indian market, not just a South-east Asian market, but pan-Asian,’ he said. ‘They need a place to integrate their pan-Asian business - integrate across geographies and integrate across business lines.’

And some companies do that because for a certain business line, the Asian market may be the biggest. For example, a company may have a speciality chemicals line of business for which demand is highest in China, he explained.

‘So you site the global headquarters out of Asia. Some companies call it their co-headquarters, so their HQ could be in Europe or the United States, but they want their co-headquarters to be in Asia.

‘Some companies call it their international headquarters, or a home away from home, whatever it is, but it is that location in Asia to manage an important part of their business, and certainly a very significant growing part of their business.’

And he believes Singapore can be that location as a global business city with an English-speaking, cosmopolitan workforce and modern infrastructure. On top of that, it’s also a great place to live in.

Already there is much global business connectivity with Singapore playing host to some 7,000 multinationals and another several thousand Chinese and Indian companies that can easily tie up here.

But the global offices are just the start, as the EDB wants to get these companies to lay down more foundations, and use Singapore as the centre for their innovation as well as talent development.

Singapore can be their base for technology creation, either on basic research and development or by testing new products on different ethnicities and different consumer segments from the sophisticated in taste to the masses for a diverse Asian market.

And he sees these companies not just recruiting talent in Singapore but also committing to developing a strong pipeline of managerial talent all from here.

For example, he can see Singapore institutes bringing in western trainers to do the training for 50 of the up-and-coming managers for Asia of global companies.

At the heart of this new strategy is getting companies to set their roots in Singapore, and not just put a factory here for a number of years.

‘The more entrenched the company is in Singapore, the more likely they will look at Singapore to do innovation, because it’s about growing their activities in a place they’re comfortable, that they trust, and the more likely they will use Singapore to stage their talent development. We can see it all fitting together,’ he said.

Therefore, EDB’s way of engaging potential investors is also evolving - from just talking about where to put their next investment or project to much more.

‘With this broad framework, we are now able to sit down at the table with these companies and say there are these opportunities for you to consider - not the Singapore market, but the Asian market…(and) the global market. These three pieces (business, innovation and talent), how do you see your company positioning itself for the future?’

The end result for Singaporeans, hopefully, is not only that more professional jobs will be brought here, he said. But with companies that set up corporate headquarters here and expand out, it must mean ‘very rich career pathways’ for Singaporeans, he added.

So in 10 years’ time, Singapore could well have the global and pan-Asian headquarters of a large number of Asian enterprises making their way into the Fortune 500 as well as of the top 10 global companies in each key industry sector.

Despite this new direction, pulling in big-ticket manufacturing investments will continue to be a big part of what the EDB does and has been doing for the past 40 odd years.

‘We see manufacturing continuing to be very important for Singapore,’ Mr Yip said, and he expects the sector to continue to contribute between 20 and 25 per cent in value-added to the economy.

‘It gives us the capability to do a lot of other things… At the end of the day, products will still be made, processes will still be developed.’

And he is excited about growing sectors like aerospace, chemicals, medical technology and solar manufacturing.

Even electronics, which has been seen by some as a sunset industry in Singapore as companies move plants to lower cost areas, has been given a new lease of life here with developments in plastic electronics and bioelectronics.

There are also new sectors like lifestyle, which includes fashion, sports, food and art, which Mr Yip feels Singapore can play a big role in for Asia.

Just five months into the job, and he is already looking more than 10 years ahead.

But this is a man who is well aware of the immense responsibility he has for the future economic development of Singapore - ‘what we do and don’t do has huge bearing on the economy’.

‘Each EDB chairman has built on what his predecessor has achieved. Shaping the next phase of our economic future, achieving a more diverse industry landscape, developing new growth industries, strengthening our capabilities to compete… developing the next winning move and the next economic game for Singapore to win in. This has been the EDB way. This is what I will lead the EDB team to achieve.’

Source : Straits Times - 07 December 2009

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Foreign buyers’ share of Sentosa Cove homes on the rise

Foreign buyers’ share of Sentosa Cove homes on the rise

Proportion hits 43% in first 10 months, from 39% in ‘07-’08

By KALPANA RASHIWALA

(SINGAPORE) Foreigners, including permanent residents, picked up nearly 43 per cent of the homes transacted in Sentosa Cove in the first 10 months of this year, up from about 38-39 per cent in 2007 and 2008.

A Savills analysis of caveats data captured by URA’s Realis system also showed that buyers from ‘Western’ countries - which it defined as those from Europe, North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand - made up four out of every 10 foreign buyers in Sentosa Cove between the fourth quarter of 2004 and Q4 2009.

In that period, such buyers were more active in Sentosa Cove than in the other sought-after districts of 1, 9, 10 and 11.

DTZ executive director (consulting) Ong Choon Fah observes: ‘Buyers from Western countries appreciate the lifestyle elements in residential developments a lot more. In their home markets, units in a project that face the water or bay can sometimes be priced double that of units that don’t have such a view.’

Savills found a total of 1,297 caveats lodged for purchases of private homes in Sentosa Cove over the five-year period, of which 487 (or 37.5 per cent) were from foreigners (including permanent residents). Singaporeans bought 705 units, giving them a 54 per cent share.

In the first 10 months of 2009, 133 caveats were lodged for homes in Sentosa Cove. Of these, 57 were bought by foreign buyers, with Malaysians having the largest share of 25 per cent or 14 caveats, followed by Indonesians, UK citizens, mainland Chinese and Hongkongers.

DTZ’s Mrs Ong said: ‘What Sentosa Cove offers is very unique. It’s as close to waterfront housing as you’ll get in Singapore, plus it’s a gated community, with limited car access to outsiders. Sentosa Cove used to be like a construction yard. Now, however, most of the homes have been developed, and foreigners may be even more inclined to buy.’

The additional draw to Sentosa Cove among foreign buyers is that it is the only location in Singapore where foreigners who are not Singapore permanent residents are allowed to purchase landed property.

However, they must still seek permission from the Land Dealings (Approval) Unit under the Singapore Land Authority.

The approval time for Sentosa Cove has been specially fast-tracked to 48 hours - compared with about four weeks for applications by PRs seeking approval to buy landed homes on mainland Singapore.

Mrs Ong reckons that there is scope for the share of foreign buying to increase further next year, with the opening of the two IRs.

Also, the completion of Phase One of Marina Bay Financial Centre will strengthen Singapore’s positioning as a global business centre.

‘When high networths buy, they talk about their investments to their clique of people. That can generate further interest in Sentosa Cove,’ she says.

Steven Ming, Savills director of investment sales & prestige homes, says that foreign buyers’ presence is a critical factor for prices of luxury homes in Singapore, including at Sentosa Cove.

He says: ‘If we look back, in 2006-2007 when foreigners were buying in Singapore, luxury prices ran up quite a bit.

‘At the start of this year, there was very little foreign interest in the Singapore property market and it was mostly the mass and mid-segments that were doing well.

‘In the past few months, however, foreign interest has returned and we’re seeing a pick-up in prices on Sentosa Cove.’

Source : Business Times - 07 December 2009

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Marina Bay gaining popularity

Marina Bay gaining popularity

WMRT organisers in talks for event here; Extreme Sailing Series kicks off soon

By VINCENT WEE

THE Marina Bay area could soon be on its way to fulfilling some of its sporting and glamour potential with at least one high-profile international standard sailing event organiser holding an event there and another ‘in discussions’ to do so.

Water fun: Six teams will be showcasing their cutting edge Extreme 40 boats in the bay between the Flyer and the Marina Barrage from Dec 11-15
This past weekend, the RM1.57 million (S$645,000) Monsoon Cup in Terengganu closes out the nine-leg World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) - which Malaysian tycoon Patrick Lim recently bought into - and the organisers are setting their sights firmly on a similar or bigger event in Singapore.

Mr Lim and other investors have acquired the rights holder ProMatch Tour Ltd from F10 Holdings Ltd through Hong Kong-based consortium Regal Faith Ltd. The WMRT features a boat-against-boat match racing format similar to the America’s Cup except that it is part of a circuit that currently has nine venues including France, Germany, Korea, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Bermuda and Malaysia.

‘We are currently in early stage discussion with the Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Sports Council for a WMRT event at the Marina Bay,’ said Monsoon Cup adviser Peter Gilmour. Speaking optimistically about the potential race venue as a prime example of a plug-and-play site, Mr Gilmour, who is also acting president of WMRT organisers Promatch Tour said: ‘In fact, the Marina Bay seems to be a natural venue, it could be a case of ‘just add the boats’.’

‘Talks are going well and we plan to be in Singapore in January/ February next year to test the wind conditions,’ he added.

‘We are confident of selecting one more new venue to the WMRT in 2010, bringing the total number of Tour stages to 10 from the current nine,’ said tour director Craig Mitchell. Organisers hope to add two significant venues per year, for an ideal target of 16 worldwide within the next few years. Promatch is in advanced stages of talks with seven new venues, including three in Asia, Mr Gilmour said.

Selection of the venues is relatively straightforward, Mr Mitchell explained. It should have a 500 metre diameter circle of water in order to create a race track and a good shore side vantage point for spectators, conditions Marina Bay easily meets. Technical and communications support to promoters to cater to the media such as live broadcast and providing daily news updates on the race progress are also important elements.

There is also the financial element involved as the tour works on a franchise model quite similar to F1 car racing and each commitment is currently for a period of eight years. ‘The cost to operate a new WMRT event is approximately US$5-8 million, depending on requirements of individual venue. The cost includes prize money, television coverage, local event set-up costs,’ said Mr Gilmour. ‘There are many Asian countries with beautiful coastlines but they might not know how to promote it to the world. Naturally one advantage of having an Asian owner (of the WMRT) is the increased potential for expansion within the Asian region, particularly at this time when we are seeing an awakening by Asian countries to the pleasures and beauty of competitive sailing and waterfront lifestyles,’ he noted. ‘Our focus for the long term is to develop world-class venues around the world including Asia.’

Balancing off against this is the corporate sponsorship model of the Extreme Sailing Series where this week, six teams including two Oman teams and a China team featuring local hotshot sailor Tan Wearn Haw, will be showcasing their cutting edge Extreme 40 boats in the bay at the area between the Flyer and the Marina Barrage from Dec 11-15.

The Extreme Sailing Series Asia, the new Asian leg of the OC Events-organised Extreme Sailing Series which has been an outstanding success in Europe since starting out there in 2005, comes to Singapore as the second stop of its three-stop tour after blowing away the corporate crowd in the middle of Hong Kong’s busy Victoria Harbour. After Singapore, the inaugural Asian series continues in Oman in February.

The series’ popularity is rapidly evolving as corporates warm to the concept and the possibility of a fourth venue is being explored, with a plan to grow the series to a six-event series by 2011/12.

Source : Business Times - 07 December 2009

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S’pore drawing more Asian firms to set up global base

S’pore drawing more Asian firms to set up global base

By TEH SHI NING

(SINGAPORE) Economic Development Board (EDB) chairman Leo Yip has set his sights on attracting more Asian companies to use Singapore as a base to go global.

Mr Yip: Asian enterprises will add diversity and strength to Singapore’s corporate landscape
Traditionally, EDB’s focus has been to draw investment from multinationals based in the G3 economies, and this will continue. But Mr Yip now also sees much potential for Asian enterprises to add diversity and strength to Singapore’s corporate landscape.

Many Asian businesses, especially in high-growth China and India, have reached a size where they now aspire to global presence. And Singapore is in an ‘interesting and valuable position to take advantage of this’, Mr Yip said in a recent interview.

Chinese companies like sportswear giant Li-Ning and miniature acoustic components maker AAC both set up regional or international headquarters here this year, while the chief executive of a top Indian conglomerate told him recently that Singapore could help it ‘build a global brand’. There are over 7,000 MNCs in Singapore at the moment; several thousand are from India and China.

Asian enterprises see Singapore as a springboard not just to Western markets, but high-growth ones in Asia too. ‘It is quite interesting that Chinese and Japanese companies have been talking to us about how to reach India’s market, while Indian companies ask about how we can help them enter North-east Asia,’ said Mr Yip.

Other than access to a global and regional business network, Singapore also offers these companies the opportunity to hire international talent, says Mr Yip. ‘If we can keep offering such value, we could see more of these up and coming Asian companies call Singapore home. And these could well be in the Fortune 500 in 10 to 20 years,’ he says.

Of course, there are competing Asian cities, similarly global in outlook, connectivity and international talent, and over which Singapore needs to maintain a competitive edge, he says. One way is to stretch ‘thought-leadership’ in areas where Singapore already has a lead - such as the marine industry’s offshore oil-rig business and aerospace’s maintenance, repair and overhaul services. Providing a suitable environment for test-bedding innovations and developing urban solutions is another strength, Mr Yip says. A wider range of lifestyle offerings - arts, sports, fashion - could also boost Singapore’s attractiveness and liveability. These are part of a fledgling lifestyle sector EDB hopes to grow, alongside other sectors like interactive digital media and clean technology.

EDB’s ‘relentless search for new opportunities and the next big thing’ is really to ‘ensure a more diversified and robust range of industry sectors,’ and never mere fad-chasing, says Mr Yip. Opportunities arise from existing capabilities. Semiconductor expertise has helped grow the new solar manufacturing sector, while Singapore’s own needs spawned solutions and competitive strength in the water industry, he says.

Existing growth sectors like petrochemicals, electronics, and biomedicals, of which Jurong Island, Biopolis and other business parks stand as ‘physical icons of thriving industries’, will need to be sustained too.

But sectoral growth is now framed by EDB’s wider vision of transforming Singapore from ‘host to home’ in the eyes of foreign businesses, innovators and talent. It is a strategy introduced by Mr Yip’s predecessor Lim Siong Guan, and one which he will press on with.

‘The context in which Singapore has to forge our future economic competitiveness is different from five years ago, or even two years ago,’ Mr Yip says. EDB will now broaden its scope and depth of engagement and collaboration with companies abroad. This strategy does not put an end to drawing in specific plant or R&D centre investments. Rather, it means asking how Singapore can aid these companies’ pan-Asian or global plans in the longer-term.

Source : Business Times - 07 December 2009

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It’s getting hotter at Sentosa Cove

It’s getting hotter at Sentosa Cove

More over-$10m home sales in Jan-Oct than in previous four years

By KALPANA RASHIWALA

(SINGAPORE) Homes in Sentosa Cove drew strong interest from high-net- worth investors in the first 10 months of this year - more properties costing $10 million and above were transacted during this period than in the preceding four years.

Property consultancy Savills Singapore said that its analysis of URA Realis data as at Dec 1, also shows that September and October this year were particularly active months.

In fact, the three biggest ever residential transactions in Sentosa Cove - at $20.18 million, $22 million and $30 million respectively - took place during this period. The largest involved a completed bungalow at Ocean Drive which changed hands in the secondary market in October. The $30 million sale price works out to $1,753 per square foot, based on a land area of 17,115 square feet.

BT understands that the bungalow was purchased by two Chinese citizens who are also Singapore permanent residents. The seller is a locally incorporated company.

The second and third largest deals involved subsales of two villas at Paradise Island for $22 million and $20.18 million in September.

Overall, Savills’ analysis shows that the number of caveats lodged for homes in Sentosa Cove costing $10 million and above shot up to 24 in the first 10 months of 2009 - from just 17 between Q4 2004 and Q4 2008.

Over half or 14 of the 24 deals were sealed in September and October. The firm said that a more positive global economic outlook at the time, before the recent news of Dubai World’s debt problems, gave confidence to investors to make big-ticket purchases such as super-luxury homes.

Other above-$10 million homes sold in the two months include four condo units at SC Global’s Seven Palms Sentosa Cove; a villa at Sandy Island that fetched $16.57 million or $1,950 psf of land area in the resale market; and a bungalow at Treasure Island which sold for $14.25 million or $1,662 psf, also in the resale market.

Savills said that the steady recovery of the Singapore economy in the past few months and the Republic’s renewed prominence on the global financial map have helped fuel optimism among investors to park monies here.

Singapore is also a ‘relatively cheaper’ destination to buy luxury properties compared with, say, Hong Kong. Luxury property prices here are still below their peak levels.

Savills director of investment sales & prestige homes Steven Ming offered another reason for the surge in transactions in October: according to anecdotal evidence, some high-networth mainland Chinese were in Singapore shopping for properties during their National Day Golden Week holiday.

Across all price bands, the total number of caveats lodged for private homes in Sentosa Cove shot up from 72 in the whole of last year to 133 in the first 10 months of 2009. Even so, the latest figure is just 26 per cent of the peak 516 transactions in 2006.

Savills said that the bulk of the 2009 transactions were in the subsale and resale markets. Primary market deals involving developer sales accounted for just 9 per cent of caveats, reflecting the limited release of new projects this year.

A breakdown of 2009 transactions shows that the number of caveats (both primary and secondary markets) lodged rose from nine in Q1, to 49 in Q2, and 51 in Q3. In October, there were 24 deals - the highest monthly figure for 2009 - bucking the trend of slowing property sales seen generally in Singapore.

Savills credits the approaching opening of the integrated resorts (IRs) with helping to generate a renewal of interest in the super-luxury residential market.

Prices also appreciated with the increase in transactions - the average unit price for landed homes rose from the recent low of $1,150 psf of land area in Q1 this year, to $1,533 psf in Q3 - up 33 per cent. It was up 12.2 per cent from September to $1,647 psf in October. But this figure was still about 38 per cent below the peak figure of $2,643 psf in Q1 2008.

Condominium prices in Sentosa Cove have also firmed. The average price climbed from a low of $1,200 psf in Q4 2008, to $1,804 psf in Q3 this year and $2,117 psf in September before easing to $2,030 psf in October.

The latest figure is 16.5 per cent shy of the $2,431 psf high seen in Q1 last year. Savills said that the October figure was shored up by four caveats lodged for units at Seven Palms Sentosa Cove with prices ranging from $3,091 to $3,353 psf.

Excluding these transactions, the average price for the month would have slipped to $1,658 psf.

DTZ executive director (consulting) Ong Choon Fah reckons that Sentosa Cove prices will continue to appreciate next year, although a lot will depend on the wider property market. ‘Prices in Sentosa Cove could be more volatile than in the prime districts on the mainland because Sentosa Cove buyers are relatively more investment driven than motivated by owner occupation, compared to the prime districts. When markets go up or down markedly, investors may be more inclined to sell than owner-occupiers, whether it is to cut loss or realise a gain,’ she added.

Source : Business Times - 07 December 2009

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