Lentor Hill Estate land parcels launched for sale

Despite a need to refill its land bank, Huttons Group predicts “lukewarm” developer interest in Lentor Central and Lentor Hills Road (Parcel B). “In light of the increasing risks posed by the cooling measures and growing building prices, developers may be hesitant to purchase land in areas where supply is plentiful.” “It’s possible that interest will shift to either the Pine Grove (Parcel A) property or the en bloc market,” said Lee Sze Teck, senior director of research at Huttons.

Lee expects three to five bidders for the two additional sites, with the top bid between S$1,000 and S$1,050 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr) as a risk hedge.

The final GLS land lot sold in the region, at Lentor Hills Road, went to Hong Leong Holdings, Guocoland, and TID Residential Pte Ltd for $1,060 psf ppr, according to Nicholas Mak, head of research and consultancy at ERA Realty Network. The site was designated in January of this year, only weeks after a new set of cooling measures was implemented in December 2021.

The top bid for the Lentor Central site is expected to be between $499 million and $550 million ($1,149 to $1,267 psf ppr), while the top bid for the Lentor Hills Road (Parcel B) site is expected to be between $255 million and $289 million ($1,043 and $1,182 psf ppr). Another highly competitive bidding was at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 for AMO Residence where it saw 15 bids for the tender.

Wong Siew Ying, head of research and content at PropNex Realty, believes developers will be “more careful with their bids” because of the recent sales of two other neighboring sites. She estimates the highest bids for both locations to be around S$1,100 per square foot per year.

OrangeTee & Tie’s chief executive Steven Tan expects significant demand for the completed units, citing a shortage of upgrading possibilities and a paucity of private condominiums in the neighborhood. He anticipates “strong” bids for the two confirmed list sites, while stressing that supply in the area may expand when more land parcels become available in the future.

“As a result, we estimate each site to sell for between S$1,000 and S$1,100 psf ppr, with between 7 and 10 bidders for each plot.” According to Tan, this amounts to a final bid price of S$434.1 million to S$477.6 million for Lentor Central and S$244.6 million to S$269 million for Lentor Hills Road (Parcel B).

Mak of ERA noted the “very restricted availability of new private homes in the area.” According to him, the closest new development is JadeScape at Shunfu Road, which was launched in 2018 and is being built on the former HUDC Shunfu Ville site. “Only 1% of the total number of units in JadeScape remain unsold as of February 2022.” JadeScape has a total of 1,000 units. Another upcoming development further up in Ang Mo Kio is AMO Residence which might possibly draw keen interest.

Presbyterian High School, Anderson Primary School, and CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School are all close to the Lentor Hills locations. Guocoland’s mixed-use development Lentor Modern, which will be linked with the Lentor MRT station and will include 600 residential apartments and over 96,000 sq ft of commercial, F&B, and retail space, is also coming up nearby.

The Lentor parcels tender will close on September 13, 2022, along with the tender for the HDB executive condominium site at Bukit Batok West Avenue 5, which will open in June 2022.