Ravi Chandran
Fringe city freehold Flynn Park, located at 18 – 22 Yew Siang Road, for sale via public tender
Savills Singapore today (28 July), announced the public tender of Flynn Park, located at 18-22 Yew Siang Road, a freehold elevated residential site on Kent Ridge grounds, located within the low density neighborhood of Pasir Panjang.
Savills is the exclusive marketing agent for the fringe city freehold Flynn Park sale.
Nestled within a tranquil enclave amidst parks and greenery along Kent Ridge Park and the Southern Ridges, Flynn Park sits on an elevated plot, enjoying views towards the sea, nature and parks. Situated at the end of a cul de sac, this exclusive site offers privacy and tranquillity, whilst being mere minutes from the vibrant heart of the city centre. Zoned ‘’Residential’’ with an allowable gross plot ratio of 1.4 under the 2019 Master Plan, the Site has a sprawling land area of approximately 208,443 sq ft. The site is approximately 350m from Pasir Panjang MRT Station.
The reserve price for fringe city freehold Flynn Park is $365 million, which works out to $1,284 ppr, including the 7 per cent bonus gross floor area for balconies. Based on the development baseline reply from URA, the development charge payable (including bonus balconies) is approximately $36m. The site can be redeveloped into a new upscale low density development of up to 271 units with an average size of 100 sqm.
“The CSC wanted to move quickly with our second collective sale attempt and we were impressed with the Savills team who were tasked with getting the 80% within 2 months which they duly did. Flynn Park is a very convenient and tranquil place to live in, it is a perfect place for work life balance. The Circle Line MRT has improved the accessibility tremendously. Most of the owners will be sad to move out but Flynn Park is getting older and there are more maintenance issues to deal with these days. It is time to go enbloc”, said Mr Sunil Guliani, Chairman of the CSC.
The site of the fringe city freehold Flynn Park enjoys excellent connectivity via major roads, expressways, the MRT network and major bus routes that ply Pasir Panjang Road. There is close proximity to landmarks such as Mapletree Business Park, Sentosa and the Keppel Marina. Additionally, a host of amenities and F&B offerings are within a short walk or drive (eg: Pasir Panjang Food Centre, Alexandra Retail Centre, Vivo City, amongst others).
In addition, the Pasir Panjang precinct is poised to extensively benefit from its close proximity to Singapore’s next major transformation, the future Greater Southern Waterfront. This will be the area where Singapore’s master plan for a waterfront six times the size of Marina Bay takes shape. Stretching across 30km of southern coastline from Pasir Panjang to Gardens by the Bay, the Greater Southern Waterfront is envisioned to be a seamless extension to the CBD & Marina Bay, and will be the new major gateway and location for urban living along Singapore’s Southern coast.
Galven Tan, Deputy Managing Director, Investment Sales & Capital Markets, said: “We are very excited to present this exceptional opportunity to acquire a large freehold site at the fringe of the city centre and just 350m from the MRT Station, yet right next to lush and matured nature parks. Such prime mid-sized sites are exactly what developers are seeking. Furthermore, once completed in 2025, the Circle Line will connect the new development to Marina Bay Financial District in just seven stops.”
“In the weeks prior to the tender launch, several developers have expressed keen interest on this unique site”, Galven added.
Savills Singapore is the exclusive sole marketing agent for this Public Tender exercise of the fringe city freehold Flynn Park. The tender closes on Thursday, 9 September 2021, at 3pm.
Flynn Park was launched for tender in May 2018 at the minimum price of $363.8m and the tender closed on 29 June 2018 without a buyer.
Following the announcement of the July 2018 market cooling measures, the Collective Sale Committee (“CSC”) initiated to lower the reserve price by 10% to S$325 million. This was duly approved at the EGM, and owners who are supportive of lowering the reserve price started signing a Supplemental Agreement (“SA”) to effect this. In January 2019, it was relaunched for sale by tender. The tender again closed without finding a buyer.
Mr Paul Ho, chief officer at iCompareLoan, said: “the fringe city freehold Flynn Park offers excellent accessibility to all parts of Singapore as Pasir Panjang MRT Station is at its doorstep. The Central Business District is just about 10 minutes’ drive away via the West Coast Highway and Keppel Viaduct.”
The development is nestled in the established low-density Pasir Panjang residential neighbourhood. It provides a rare redevelopment opportunity for an upscale low-density living next to the nature. It is just next to the Canopy Walk – an elevated boardwalk linking Kent Ridge Park to Hort Park.
Additionally, the site is in close proximity to a wide range of F&B offerings ar Pasir Panjang Food Centre, Seah Im Food Centre, various earteries along Pasir Panjang Road. Shopping and recreational amenities are readily available a short distance away at VivoCity, Sentosa, Resorts Wold Sentosa/Universal Studios.
Mr Ho said, “The CSC has to act in a manner to conclude the sale with minimal delay and maximum benefit to the owners.”
One way he said was to conduct a Collective Sales Agreement (CSA) as well as concurrently collect a “Non Collective Sales Agreement (NCSA)”, so that once a NCSA reaches 20%, the collective sale process is called off. There is really no point to drag on.
As collective sale process takes 20 to 30 months to complete, during this time, the owners typically do not have sufficient funds for down-payment and their CPF OA funds are tied up in the property, hence they cannot buy a new condominium early.
By the time the transaction is completed in 20 to 30 months later, the property prices would have already moved up 10 to 20 per cent. This is already evidenced by sellers of older estate asking higher prices. Hence if the process takes 20 months to 30 months, owners may need to consider the cost of a replacement unit by that time, else they may want to hold up a higher selling price.
Mr Ho pointed out that the rules are quite onerous and stringent and is governed by the Land Titles (Strata) Act – section 84A. Over the years, additions and amendments by the Ministry of Law to the en bloc law have made the collective sale rules even tighter.
He said that many of the home owners who refinanced their home loans to fixed rate home loans or those with 2 years locked-in or 3 years locked-in period will incur full home loan redemption penalty. This penalty is usually 1.5% of the loan amount. This tends to affect those who have bought their properties in recent years as their loan size tends to be bigger and their corresponding home loan redemption penalty higher.
Mr Ho suggested that if one’s home is at risk of en bloc, the owner could consider a home loan where there is no locked-in penalty, but instead entails a higher housing interest rate cost. The next best option is to look for packages with a waiver of locked-in penalty due to sale of property. Such owners may contact a mortgage broker to assist them to find such packages with waiver of locked-in penalty.
