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Channelnewsasia.com  | 15 May 2013 11:38 PM Raffles Quay Asset Management said it is confident of filling up the rest of the office space at Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, as well as sell the remaining units of luxury apartments at Marina Bay Suites. SINGAPORE: Raffles Quay Asset Management said it is confident of filling up the rest of the office space at Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, as well as sell the remaining units of luxury apartments at Marina Bay Suites -- despite uncertainties in the global economy and the property cooling measures announced in January 2013. About 88 per cent of the 221 units at Marina Bay Suites have been sold so far. While sales have slowed, the manager of MBFC said it is confident that buyers will return. The high-end residential development, with an average selling price of S$2,700 per square foot, will be ready for occupation soon. The luxury property segment has been hit by various rounds of property

Channelnewsasia.com  | 15 May 2013 2:03 PM Sales of new private homes, excluding executive condominiums, nosedived by some 50 per cent to 1,375 units in April, according to figures released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority on Wednesday. SINGAPORE: Sales of new private homes, excluding executive condominiums, nosedived by some 50 per cent to 1,375 units in April, according to figures released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Wednesday. This compares with the 2,793 units moved in March, which was the highest monthly sales volume since June 2007. The April figure was also lower than the 2,497 new home sales recorded in the same month a year ago. Market watchers were not surprised by the sharp fall in April. They had expected the decline, given the extraordinarily high base of sales seen in March, something they said was unsustainable. Furthermore, the lack of large-scale project launches in April naturally meant fewer sales.

The Straits Times  | MAY 4, 2013 Major condo projects, upcoming MRT station will transform area ABUNDANT nature reserves and water catchment areas have made the Upper Thomson district better known for greenery than as a residential hot spot, but that is set to change. The area's transformation is coming on two fronts - major condominium projects that are taking shape and the upcoming Upper Thomson MRT station. This station, located near Thomson Plaza, is part of the $18 billion Thomson Line, which is slated for completion in 2019. The Upper Thomson district consists mainly of landed housing, with clusters of condos and apartments around Bright Hill Drive and Sin Ming estate. There are few options for home buyers but the low housing supply augurs well for owners, said Jones Lang LaSalle Singapore research director Ong Teck Hui. He expects demand to pick up once the area becomes more accessible, saying: "The stretch from Long House to Thomson Plaza, wit

The Straits Times  | MAY 7, 2013 They will boost recurring income stream and provide higher yield than mall: UOL THE former Furniture Mall at Beach Road has been turned into 180 serviced residences by owner UOL Group at a construction cost of $65 million. The 20-storey Pan Pacific Serviced Suites Beach Road, which opens today, will boost recurring income stream and provide a higher yield than the mall, UOL Group president of property Liam Wee Sin told The Straits Times. Noting that Furniture Mall yields were below 4 per cent, Mr Liam added that serviced residences, which typically have more stable occupancy rates than hotels, were also cheaper to operate than hotels. He said UOL had considered turning the site into additional hotel rooms or a budget hotel but eventually chose serviced apartments because the serviced residence market here was still unsaturated. An OCBC Investment Research report last December estimated that serviced residences account for about 9

The Business Times  | MAY 10, 2013 ERA brand said to be on market with $150m price tag [SINGAPORE] Harry Chua, a key figure in Singapore's real estate agency industry, is looking to sell his baby - ERA Realty Network - for about $150 million. Mr Chua's Hersing Corporation is understood to have put the group's master franchise rights to the ERA brand on the market. Hersing's rights to the US brand covers Asia-Pacific and are perpetual renewal rights, renewable every 30 years. ERA has about 9,000 agents across the Asia-Pacific in countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia and China. Most are located in Singapore, where ERA has 5,103 agents, according to data from the Council for Estate Agencies. The agency is currently led by Richard Tynes, who took over as chief executive officer in January this year. Running the show previously was Jack Chua, who has been with Hersing for over 20 years and is widely regarded as a key

The Business Times  | M AY 11, 2013 Non-landed home resales plunge 53.9% year-on-year in April; last month also sees 0.4% drop in prices from March RESALE volumes of private homes have continued their downward trajectory, even as prices island-wide continued to soften. A total of 572 resale non-landed homes changed hands last month, going by flash figures released by the Singapore Real Estate Exchange yesterday. While comparable to March's 614 units sold, this is a 53.9 per cent drop from the 1,240 transactions recorded in April last year. DTZ's head of Singapore research Lee Lay Keng suggested that the fall in demand could have come from a mismatch in the expectations of buyers and sellers. "Singaporeans who already own two or more properties will now have to pay an an additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD) of 7 per cent or 10 per cent if they were to purchase another property after selling their secondary properties. "As the replacement cos