Ravi Chandran
Savills Singapore on 8 May announced the sale of a freehold commercial shophouse along Havelock Road for sale by EOI (Expression of Interest). The EOI closes on the 12th June 2018 Tuesday at 3pm.
The intermediate 3-storey freehold commercial shophouse at 772 Havelock Road consists of a ground floor retail shop and residential units on the upper floors. Located along Havelock Road, just after the junction with Beo Crescent, the property is within a row of shophouses famous for its eateries.
The city fringe property has a gross floor area of about 3,767 sq ft and land area about 1,574.8 sq ft. Under the 2014 Master Plan, it is zoned Residential with Commercial at 1st Storey and has a Plot Ratio of 3. Subject to approval, there is potential to undertake addition and alteration works to further enhance the value of the property.
Nestled amongst public housing estates Havelock View, Beo Crescent and Tiong Bahru View, there is a large catchment of foot traffic. Other notable landmarks such as Tiong Bahru Plaza, Delta House and Valley Point are located nearby.
The shophouse is easily accessible as it is well positioned near the main junction of Alexandra Road and Lower Delta Road which is also well served by public transportation. There are ample carpark lots within close proximity to the property and Tiong Bahru MRT is a short walk away.
“This Havelock commercial shophouse presents an opportunity to own a rare collectible along this row of commercial shophouses popular for its eateries. Prospective buyers can consider renting the ground floor space to a F&B operator and home office cum co-living concepts for the upper floor units, subject to approval. Hence while they enjoy immediate rental now, in future they can look to reposition the commercial property through tenant upgrades and enhancement works.” said Donald Goh, director of investment sales at Savills Singapore.
The Havelock Road property is among similar freehold commercial shophouses which have been put up for sale by EOI in recent months. In early April, Knight Frank Singapore reported that a row of four adjoining two-storey freehold shophouses with attic at 71 to 73B Jalan Besar have been put up for sale by EOI at a guide price of over $20 million.
The sale by EOI of the freehold property comes at a time when the office market showed continued signs of recovery in the fourth quarter of 2017, with active leasing activity gathering pace. A February 2018 report by Knight Frank on Office Market snapshot said: “The ‘flight to quality and efficiency’ supply-led demand for prime office space that was dominant in 2017 is expected to continue in 2018. Tenants are relocating to larger and more efficient floor plates to fulfil their evolving operational requirements, over less and / or scalable office space through various activity-based workplace solutions. Prime office rents are expected to rise by at least 8.0% to 12.0% year-on-year by Q4 2018.”
If you are currently renting your retail shop or office space, you may consider using our calculator whether to buy commercial property. However if you are aiming to buy for investment, then you will need to consider carefully the potential rent that you could obtain from the unit.
In property, there are fundamentals and there are sentiments. When sentiments run wild, that can defy logic for an extended period of time. And ultimately when everyone makes silly decisions, it is also possible that the person that is not silly will lose out.
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