Collective sales heat up as aggressive developers replenish land banks

Total transactions for the year has already reached $1.5b.

The collective sales market in Singapore is on a winning streak after it recorded its fourth en-bloc transaction in May.

To recall, MCL Land agreed to acquire Eunosville through a collective sale transaction for $765.8m, which including an estimated $194m differential premium translates to a bullish $909 psf ppr.

This transaction brings collective market sales for the year to $1.5b, already past the $1b and $380m annual totals seen in 2016 and 2015, respectively.

"We expect to see more collective sales this year as developers move quickly to replenish their land banks, which for many now lie at multi-year lows given falling home prices since 2014," OCBC Investment Research said.

More so, the brokerage firm said buyer sentiments appear to have improved after the latest tweaks to the property curbs in March where some measures relating to the sellers' stamp duty and the total debt servicing ratio were relaxed.

"We believe these changes were, on a net basis, supportive of the physical market and continue to forecast for home prices to reach an inflection point by 2018," OCBC Investment Research explained.