Singapore trims private housing supply on Confirmed List to 5,050 units

The list includes the 2.94ha Cencharu Close site.

Amid the lacklustre participation in recent land tenders, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has scaled down its 2H24 Government Land Sale (GLS) programme to 5,050 units from 5,450 units in the first half.

The programme’s Confirmed List comprises nine private residential sites including one EC site and a commercial-cum-residential site that could yield about 5,050 new homes and 14,300 sqm of commercial space when developed.

Tricia Song, CBRE’s research head for Singapore, said this marked the first time URA did not increase its GLS progrmme in four years or since the second half of 2020, when the sites made available could only yield 1,390 units.

“We believe the pause in ramping up supply is wise to prevent an over-supply, considering the lacklustre response in the recent land tenders and decade-low developer sales,” Song said.

URA’s second-half programme includes 2.94ha Cencharu Close site which could yield 875 units and 13,000 sqm of commercial space when developed.

Among the biggest residential sites are the 580-unit River Valley Green (Parcel B), 500-unit Lentor Gardens, 550-unit Chuan Grove, as well as the 560-unit EC site on Tampines Street 95.

Song noted that URA did not include new sites with a stringent long-stay Serviced Apartment requirement after the tender for Upper Thomson Road (Parcel A) closed with no bids last week. Under the latest programme, the River Valley Green (Parcel B) now only allows a portion of the GFA for serviced apartment use.

For Chua Yang Liang, research and consultancy head at JLL, the latest programme follows the government’s long-term goal to keep Singapore’s private housing supply sustainable and price growth in check.

Chua expects bidding on Lentor Gardens and River Valley Green (Parcel B) to remain muted.

Leonard Tay, research head at Knight Frank, said scaling down the GLS programme reflects the cautious sentiment of developers who have been grappling with elevated interest rates, cooling measures and high construction costs.

“The number of interested bidders shrank from regularly more than seven in 2021 to frequently less than five in 2023, to an average of just over two bids per site in the tenders that closed in the first half of 2024,” Tay said.