Daily Briefing: Pine Grove condo retries en bloc sale for $1.86b; Grab imposes $4 cancellation fee on customers

And Johor will stop buying Singapore's treated water supply.

From iCompareLoan:

Pine Grove condominium tries for en bloc sale again with a reserve price of $1.86b.

Launched on Feb 26, the 660-unit condominium in the Holland Road cluster’s reserve price translates to a land rate of $1,307 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), after factoring in differential and lease upgrade premiums.

C&H Group said that the site can be redeveloped into a residential estate of up to 24 storeys and no more than 2,050 units at an average size of 85 sqm. This cited build-up requires planning approval.

In the past year, Pine Grove raised the reserve price twice. At the end of 2017, the reserve price was set at about $1.63b.

Read more here.

From Channel News Asia:

Grab users will be charged a $4 cancellation fee from March 11 if they cancel a ride more than five minutes after securing a booking.

For ride-sharing service GrabShare, passengers will incur the $4 charge if they cancel more than three minutes after securing a ride.

Currently, Grab users are charged a $5 fee if they cancel a ride for the third time in seven days, regardless of when the cancellation was made.

Under the updated guidelines, cancellations made within five minutes of getting a driver will be free. For GrabShare passengers, cancellations must be made within three minutes before they are penalised.

Read more here.

From Yahoo News Singapore:

Yahoo News SG reported that Johor chief minister Osman Sapian said on Friday that his state plans to stop relying on Singapore’s supply of treated water and intends for the state to be self-sufficient in terms of water.

His comments come on the heels of comments made by Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad calling a decades-long water trade agreement between Malaysia and Singapore as “morally wrong”, likening it to a “rich” country (in this case, Singapore) allegedly exploiting a “poor” country (in this case, Malaysia).

The PM here is referring to a deal made in 1962 which is tied to Singapore’s independence from Malaysia, where Singapore buys untreated water from Malaysia at three cents per 1,000 gallons and sells it back to Malaysia at 50 cents per 1,000 gallons — a small part of the cost it takes to treat the water.

Read more here.

Photo credit: PropertyGuru website