Putting a price on the Istana

SINGAPORE — The Istana is Singapore’s most prominent and historically valuable property — but how much is it worth in purely monetary terms?

That is the question being posed by real estate website PropertyGuru.com.sg, which is launching a competition today that tests property watchers’ ability to estimate the value of the President’s official residence and the location of many important events throughout Singapore’s history.

Mr Steve Melhuish, CEO of PropertyGuru, said winning the competition, which is part of the website’s campaign to educate people on how to make accurate property value estimates, will be a challenge.

“As the Istana is such an iconic building and such a part of the fabric of Singapore, it adds to the complexity of the assessment process.”

He added that participants will need to look at a number of factors, ranging from the dollar-value of a large piece of land in the prime Orchard Road area, which may be comparatively easy to calculate, to putting a price on the historical significance of the buildings, which is more subjective.

PropertyGuru is roping in four real estate experts to give their pricing assessment. The winning guess will be benchmarked against their views and those of the website’s own research team.

When it was completed in 1869, Government House (as the Istana was then called) was found to have cost S$185,000. Mr Melhuish said participants will need to add a few more zeroes to that number. “As well as the buildings, it’s got its own golf course and some extremely nice gardens all within the prime District 9 location, and such things add a lot to the price tag.”

The winner of the competition, which is being launched on PropertyGuru’s Facebook page, will win a night at Raffles Hotel.