River Valley Green site gets $464m top bid, no offers for Upper Thomson Road

Wing Tai's top bid for River Valley Green (Parcel A) translates to $1,325 psf ppr.

Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) tender for the residential plot in River Valley Green closed with only two offers, while not a single developer placed an offer on the long-stay serviced apartment site on Upper Thomson Road.

Chia Siew Chuin, JLL’s head of residential research, said bids for the River Valley Green (Parcel A) site were fewer than initially anticipated as developers continued to be cautious with their bids.

The top bid of $464m, submitted by Wing Tai Holdings, translates to $1,325 psf ppr, or 13% below the $1,515 psf ppr that City Developments Limited had paid in January 2020 for the site of its latest project in the area, the Irwell Hill Residences, according to Chia.

Despite this, the top offer was still 10% higher than the $1,202 psf ppr top bid submitted for the Zion Road (Parcel A) plot nearby, which requires a long-stay serviced apartment component. 

Also dampening the tender’s results is the gush of potential new supply in the area with over 1,300 new homes already in the pipeline from Zion Road land parcels, according to Lee Sze Teck, Senior Director for Data Analytics at Huttons.

Should the tender be awarded, Knight Frank estimated the project on River Valley Green (Parcel A) to be sold at starting prices of $2,900 to $3,000 psf. 

Upper Thomson Road (Parcel A)

Leonard Tay, Knight Frank’s research head, said the zero bids for the Upper Thomson Road (Parcel A) site were not expected but not entirely surprising.

“The long-stay serviced apartment concept in the central area of the island has yet to be tested, let alone in a suburban area,” Tay said. “It is possible that the need to develop Long-Stay Serviced Apartments in the current climate today might have deterred interest.”

Wong Siew Ying, Head of Research and Content at PropNex, shared the same sentiment, noting that developers might be indicating that they are unsure about the leasing demand for long-stay serviced apartments in the area, with the plot nowhere near any major commercial hubs.

“Overall, we expect caution to prevail, as there could perhaps be some uncertainty about the depth of the private housing demand after the slower sales in 2023, and the relatively lacklustre transaction volume in recent months amid limited project launches,” Wong said.

Singapore's new private home sales dropped for the second straight month in May, selling only 221 units compared to 278 units sold in April. It was also the lowest monthly sale for the month of May since 2008.