singapore property weekly issue 209

8/9/2019 Singapore Property Weekly Issue 209

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Issue 209Copyright © 2011-2014 www.Propwise.sg. All Rights Reserved.

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CONTENTS

p2 Why Developer Defects Are the Off-Plan

Property Buyers’ Worst Nightmare

p7 Singapore Property News This Week

p12 Resale Property Transactions

(May 6 – May 12 )

Welcome to the 209th edition of the

Singapore Property Weekly .

Hope you like it!

Mr. Propwise

FROM THE

EDITOR

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SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY Issue 209

Page | 2Back to Contents

By Property Soul (guest contributor)

Residents of Trivelis, an 888-unit Design,

Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) project in

Clementi, are disappointed about the quality

of their new flats.

Owners who collected keys to their new units

since January complained about defective

stove knobs, rusty dish racks, stain-prone

kitchen countertops, poor quality laminate

flooring, shattered shower glass panels,

wardrobes without shelves, rusty lift doors

and flooding corridors.

Why Developer Defects Are the Off-Plan PropertyBuyers‟ Worst Nightmare

http://propertysoul.com/author/propertysoul/http://propertysoul.com/author/propertysoul/http://propertysoul.com/author/propertysoul/http://propertysoul.com/author/propertysoul/


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What happened to Trivelis after TOP?

Ironically, „delivery of high-quality products‟ is

both the vision and the mission of the

developer EL Development, though the long

list of developer defects in Trivelis has proven

otherwise. The end products are also a big

contrast to „choice fittings‟ and „quality floor

finishes‟ as stated in the project‟s sales

brochure.

This was not an individual case of one owner

suing the developer for discrepancies of the

actual unit from the sales brochure, but from

the feedback of 300 emails from the

residents.

EL Development finally agreed on May 14

that, besides arranging repairs and replacing

defective items, it would look into giving

residents a goodwill package (Straits Times,

May 15, 2015, “DBSS flat owners at Trivelismay get goodwill package following slew of

complaints”)

Background of the developer

EL Development is not new in the local

property scene. The 9-year-old developer isbehind a few small residential projects in the

prime districts, including Stevens Suites, Parc

Centennial, Rhapsody on Mount Elizabeth

and Illuminaire on Devonshire.

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-complhttp://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/housing/story/dbss-flat-owners-trivelis-may-get-goodwill-package-following-slew-compl


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For mass market condominiums, there are

Trivelis, Rosewood Suites, La Fiesta and

SkySuites 17. Projects of industrial

development include Nordix, Eldix and Jurong

Food Hub.

With their higher price tags, flats built under

the DBSS scheme are supposed to be better

quality compared with Built-to Order or

normal HDB flats. For Trivelis, the most

expensive unit costs a hefty $800,000 whichis comparable to buying a unit in a mass

market condominium in the private market.

And it remains a mystery how the developer

managed to pass the inspections and checks

of the Housing Development Board to obtain

the TOP (Temporary Occupation Permit).

The bargaining power of off-plan property

buyers

If a buyer purchases a second hand property,

to the seller, the buyer is the only purchase

party. In this case, the bargaining power of

the buyer is high. If the buyer finds any defect

during flat viewing, he/she can specify in the

offer to purchase to instruct the seller to

rectify the problem before handover. If the

seller fails to do so, the buyer has the right to

seek compensation.

On the other hand, if a buyer purchases off-

plan from a project under construction, to thedeveloper, the buyer is only one of a few

hundred purchase parties. In this case, the

bargaining power of the buyer is low. If the

buyer finds any defect after collecting the key,

he/she can report to the developer and it is at

the discretion of the latter how it wants torectify the problem.

Although there is a one-year liability period

after project TOP for developers to fix all the

defects, in the past there are cases where


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the developer puts the blame on the

contractors and conveniently pass the

responsibility to them.

When developer defects become yours

For off-plan property buyers, they can only

pray that there is no major developer defect

when the developer hands over the new flats

to them.

If unfortunately, they turn out to be developer

defect victims like the Trivelis residents, they

can only cross their fingers that the developer

will take care of all the rectifying work so that

they don‟t have to dig into their own pocket.

For units bought for investment, owners may

choose to fix the defects themselves rather than waiting for the developer to take actions.

Time is money – the sooner they fix the

problems, the sooner they can rent out their

unit.

If the problem is minor, they may prefer not to

talk to the media for fear of affecting the value

of their property. Who will want to rent or buy

a second-hand unit from a project like

Trivelis?

Even if the owners decide to join together to

sue the developer, at most the court will order

the developer to fix the defects after they win

the case. There won‟t be any other form of

compensation for the owners. It is also likelyto end up to be a long battle that wastes time

and money.

Protection for buyers of uncompleted

projects

One reason why many first-time buyers like to

purchase off-plan properties is the flexibility of

the payment scheme. After putting down a

deposit at the sales gallery, buyers only need

to pay the down payment to exercise the


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option in 8 weeks‟ time. After that, they can

follow a payment plan according to the

building progress of the project.

Without the pressure to fork out a big lump

sum upfront, off-plan properties sound more

flexible and affordable to home buyers.

However, the biggest problem of buying off-

plan properties is „what you see is not what

you get‟. Misunderstandings and

misinterpretations often arise from picturesfor artists‟ impressions only and from the

unnoticeable fine print.

Except the 12-month defect liability period,

there is no law protecting the rights of home

buyers when they find sub-standard fittings,

furnishings, fixtures and building materials in

their new homes. There is also no fine

imposed on developers, builders and

contractors when they have unsafe structures

or fixtures in the project that may cause harm

or accidents to residents in the development.

In that sense, the terms of buying resale units

are much more favorable compared with

buying off-plan properties.By guest contributor Property Soul, a

successful property investor, blogger , and

author of the No B.S. Guide to Property

Investment.

SINGAPORE PROPERTY WEEKLY I 209

http://propertysoul.com/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://aktive.com.sg/store/no-b-s-guide-to-property-investment/http://propertysoul.com/


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Singapore Property This Week


Residential

P r o p er t y d e v el o p er s m a y b e c h a r g e d u p

t o $90m in ext ension f ees by end of year

From April to December this year, developers

may be charged up to $90 million in

extension fees for unsold condo units.

According to the Business Times, this

amount will be raised to $238 million in 2016

if current market conditions prevail. The large

increase in the extension charge is because

more projects received their temporary

occupation permit in 2014 as compared to

the previous year. Developers are given two

years to sell their projects. As such, more

developers may be incurring the extension

charges in 2016 than in 2015. Christine Li

from Cushman & Wakefield said that bulk

sales or project re-launches may be useful

strategies to help developers sell their unsold

units.

(Source: Business Times)

E C s i t e a t C h o a C h u K a n g l a u n c h e d f o r

t ender

Located at Choa Chu Kang, an executive

condominium site (EC) has been launched

for tender. The tender is expected to close onJune 30. The site is 4.9 hectares large and

has a 99-year lease. It may be developed

into 490 units according to HDB.


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into four smaller plots of about 15,000 sq ft.

According to CBRE, from the start of the year

till April, 6 GCBs had changed hands. The

sales amounted to $125.82 million in total. In

2014, 28 transactions were made in the GCBarea, and that amounted to $626.14 million.


N ew r u l e s f o r s h o w u n i t s a n d s a l e s d a t a

Under the revised Housing Developers

(Control and Licensing) Act, developers will

have to provide detailed sales data on a

weekly basis and disclose the value of any

benefits to buyers in transaction documents.

According to MND, these new rules for

developers will provide more information to

prospective buyers of private residential

properties. Nicholas Mak from SLP

International said that not all developers are

thrilled by the changes as they may have to

redesign their show flats in order to comply

with the new regulations. Mak said that

developers may use optical tricks to make a

space look bigger. These tricks include the

use of the same tiles for the balcony and theliving room. With the new rules, developers

will have to submit a declaration. Not only so,

spot checks will be made to ensure that

developers have complied with the rules.


Commercial

C BR E: i nv es to r s c au t io u s o f t he h o tel

m a r k e t

Teo Junrong from CBRE Hotels said that

investors have become more cautious of thehotel market in the first quarter of this year. In

Q1 this year, the hotel market has attracted a

substantial amount of interest. However, only

one deal was recorded.



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According to the Business Times, investors

are more cautious as the tourism industry has

been negatively affected by the strong

Singapore dollar. Room rates and occupancy

rates have also been affected by an increasein hotel room supply, said the Business

Times. According to the Business Times, the

average occupancy rate fell by 1 percent to

84 percent year-on-year in January and

February this year. The average room rate

also fell by 5 percent to $249. Despite the fallin occupancy rates, market experts believe

that the occupancy rate is still considerably

high.



http://www.moneymatters.sg/


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Non-Landed Residential Resale Property Transactions for the Week of May 6 – May 12

Postal

District

Project NameArea

(sqft)

Transacted

Price ($)

Price

($ psf)

Tenure

3 EMERALD PARK 947 1,020,000 1,077 99

4 REFLECTIONS AT KEPPEL BAY 2,616 4,500,000 1,720 99

4 CARIBBEAN AT KEPPEL BAY 1,227 1,845,000 1,504 99

5 THE STELLAR 947 1,255,000 1,325 FH

5 THE PARC CONDOMINIUM 1,421 1,850,000 1,302 FH

5 THE FOLIAGE 1,690 1,488,000 881 FH

5 VARSITY PARK CONDOMINIUM 2,271 1,880,000 828 99

5 FABER HILLS 1,668 1,350,000 809 FH

8 KERRISDALE 1,259 1,200,000 953 999 THE TRILLIUM 2,217 4,950,000 2,232 FH

9 WILKIE 80 431 820,000 1,904 FH

9 RESIDENCES @ KILLINEY 1,625 2 ,880,000 1,772 FH

9 CAIRNHILL PLAZA 2,852 3,800,000 1,332 FH

10 FOUR SEASONS PARK 3,821 10,500,000 2,748 FH

10 THE TRIZON 1,195 1,955,000 1,636 FH

10 WATERFALL GARDENS 2,196 3,388,000 1,543 FH

10 THE SIERRA 710 888,000 1,250 947

11 THE SHELFORD 1,227 2,200,000 1,793 FH

11 NEWTON 21 1,066 1,755,000 1,647 FH

11 NEWTON ONE 1,916 3,060,000 1,597 FH

12 TRELLIS TOWERS 1,485 1,890,000 1,272 FH

12 THE ARTE 1,528 1,825,000 1,194 FH

Postal

District

Project NameArea

(sqft)

Transacted

Price ($)

Price

($ psf)

Tenure

14 DAKOTA RESIDENCES 1,313 1,880,000 1,432 99

14 VIENTO 452 600,000 1,327 FH

14 THE WATERINA 1,238 1,450,000 1,171 FH

14 THE SUNNY SPRING 1,001 1,000,000 999 FH

14 ASTORIA PARK 1,195 1,185,000 992 99

15 THE MAKENA 1,152 1,520,000 1,320 FH

15 WATER PLACE 904 1,130,000 1,250 99

15 COSTA RHU 1,647 2,020,000 1,227 99

15 SANCTUARY GREEN 1,572 1,710,000 1,088 9915 VERSAILLES 700 750,000 1,072 FH

15 SANCTUARY GREEN 1,572 1,680,000 1,069 99

16 CASA MERAH 1,249 1,350,000 1,081 99

16 EAST MEADOWS 1,378 1,280,000 929 99

16 BAYWATER 1,055 950,000 901 99

16 RIVIERA RESIDENCES 2,411 2,150,000 892 FH

16 TANAMERA CREST 1,163 938,000 807 99

17 FERRARIA PARK CONDOMINIUM 1,195 1,130,000 946 FH

17 DAHLIA PARK CONDOMINIUM 1,098 845,000 770 FH

17 ESTELLA GARDENS 1,507 1,120,000 743 FH

19 SUNGLADE 1,830 1,800,000 984 99

19 CHILTERN PARK 1,270 1,168,000 920 99

19 ROSALIA PARK 1,475 1,270,000 861 FH



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NOTE: This data only covers non-landed residential resale propertytransactions with caveats lodged with the Singapore Land Authority.Typically, caveats are lodged at least 2-3 weeks after a purchasersigns an OTP, hence the lagged nature of the data.

Postal

DistrictProject Name

Area

(sqft)

Transacted

Price ($)

Price

($ psf)Tenure

19 EVERGREEN PARK 1,173 855,000 729 99

19 EVERGREEN PARK 1,173 830,000 707 99

20 SEASONS VIEW 969 920,000 950 99

21 SUMMERHILL 1,948 2,088,800 1,072 FH21 MEADOWLODGE 1,206 1,138,000 944 99

21 THE HILLSIDE 1,528 1,350,000 883 FH

22 CASPIAN 1,238 1,300,000 1,050 99

22 LAKEHOLMZ 1,249 1,150,000 921 99

23 PARK NATURA 2,314 2,310,000 998 FH

23 THE LINEAR 1,227 1,080,000 880 999

23 PARKVIEW APARTMENTS 926 785,000 848 99

25 PARC ROSEWOOD 431 570,000 1,324 99

26 CASTLE GREEN 1,410 1,180,000 837 9927 CANBERRA RESIDENCES 883 818,000 927 99

27 THE SENSORIA 1,152 832,000 722 FH
http://propertymarketinsights.com/

singapore property weekly issue 209

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