SINGAPORE - Mr Lee Hsien Yang and his wife, Mrs Lee Suet Fern, have sold a two-storey bungalow in the Caldecott Hill good class bungalow (GCB) area for $13 million, and put another nearby bungalow on the market for $16.8 million.
The adjoining freehold properties are located in Caldecott Close, near the old premises of Mediacorp.
A search on the Singapore Land Authority website shows that Mr Lee, the younger brother of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and Mrs Lee are joint owners of both properties.
An option to buy one of the bungalows, which sits on a 921.6 sq m or 9,920 sq ft site, has been granted to a Singaporean businessman for $13 million, or under $1,400 per sq ft (psf), sources told The Straits Times.
The $16.8 million asking price for the other bungalow translates to around $1,700 psf, based on its land area of 918.5 sq m or 9,888 sq ft.
When contacted on Wednesday (Oct 6), Mrs Lee declined to comment.
Described as a "resort-style modern bungalow", this property is listed on real estate portal PropertyGuru. It has six bedrooms, two living rooms and a dining room, a basement wine cellar and lounge, a helper's room, an infinity pool and a koi pond. Four cars can be parked inside the property, which is being sold with vacant possession.
The listing was first reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Reflecting the demand for well-located landed properties, the total value of GCB deals in Singapore is heading for a 10-year high if sales continue at the blistering pace they have set so far this year.
There have been 68 sales totalling $2.05 billion from Jan 1 to Aug 20, up 392 per cent from the 21 deals worth $415.8 million in the same period last year, noted List Sotheby's International Realty.
JLL Singapore said the level of deals in the six months to June 30 was the best half-year performance in 11 years, a striking outcome given the pandemic and the severe recession that resulted in Singapore's economy contracting 5.4 per cent last year.
Mr Samuel Eyo, managing director of Lighthouse Property Consultants, said that the highest per sq ft (psf) price achieved for transactions in the Caldecott Hill GCB area this year was $1,537 psf, or $36 million, for a GCB in Olive Road. It was sold to Mr Ian Ang, co-founder and chief executive of ergonomic chair retailer Secretlab.
In November 2020, a GCB in Andrew Road was sold for $744 psf, or $20.5 million, Mr Eyo added.
Of Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Mrs Lee's two properties, he said: "Based on the past year's transactions, land in the Caldecott Hill GCB area averaged around $1,000 to $1,100 psf."
But with one of the Caldecott Close bungalows being sold at under $1,400 psf, "that is a good price because it shows buyers are willing to pay above $1,000 psf for land in the Caldecott Hill GCB area", Mr Eyo said.
List Sotheby's senior associate vice-president Steve Tay said that buyers are starting to appreciate the value of the Caldecott Hill estate, given its access to the city centre, as well as its proximity to Caldecott MRT station and amenities in Thomson and Toa Payoh.
Other recent notable landed property deals include the 752,015 sq ft site of Mediacorp's former Caldecott Broadcast Centre in nearby Andrew Road, which was sold for $280.9 million in December 2020 to PRE 10, an entity jointly owned by Perennial Real Estate Holdings and its chairman Kuok Khoon Hong.
Mediacorp has been granted an outline approval by the Urban Redevelopment Authority to redevelop the site into two-storey bungalows with a minimum land area of 800 sq m per house.
"There is almost no new supply of landed homes with a land size of at least 800 sq m, except for those planned on Perennial's site, so demand for bungalows in Caldecott is set to go up and, in turn, their values," Mr Tay said.
