Braddell View collective sale, with asking price of S$2.08 billion, attracts no bidders

SINGAPORE— The attempted en-bloc sale of Braddell View, with a record S$2.08 billion reserve price, did not receive any bids in its public tender, marketing agent Colliers International said on Wednesday (May 29).

A possible private treaty sale, where the price is negotiated directly between the sellers and buyer, will be explored over the next 10 weeks, said Colliers International managing director Tang Wei Leng in response to TODAY’s queries.

A public tender could also be relaunched “if necessary”, added Ms Tang.

The 1.14 million sqf development on Braddell Hill is the largest private residential site here, and was the largest of the 18 former Housing and Urban Development Company (HUDC) estates in Singapore, comprising 918 units of apartments, maisonettes and penthouses, as well as two shops.

Up to 2,620 new residential units with an average size of about 915 sqf could be built on the site, Colliers said in a previous press release.

Braddell View’s asking price of S$2.08 billion is the highest for a former HUDC project.

Pine Grove held the previous record with its reserve price of S$1.86 billion. Mandarin Gardens has the record across all private developments after raising its asking price to S$2.93 billion in March. Pine Grove remains unsold, while Mandarin Gardens failed to hit the 80 per cent approval level for the sale to take place.

Last year, some Braddell View residents had voiced unhappiness over the details of the proposed sale, such as the method that would be used to divide the earnings if the collective sale went through.

However, lawyers overseeing the sale noted that the owners of 741 units had agreed to the terms, and that this figure represented more than the 80 per cent of owners required to trigger the en-bloc sale in March.

The Braddell View site has about 61 years remaining on its 102-year lease tenure, which started on Feb 1, 1978.

The result of Braddell View’s tender did not seem to surprise the property experts TODAY spoke to.

Savills Singapore executive director Alan Cheong said that the lack of bids could be a result of “hard-handed” property market cooling measures.

Developers have to sell out their new developments within a five-year period in order to apply for the remission of the 25 per cent Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD), which was raised in July last year.

Mr Cheong said that such cooling measures were akin to applying “aircraft brakes on a motorcycle”, adding that these “cumbersome” measures could stunt redevelopment plans of these ageing estates.

This comes on top of Braddell View’s high asking price, which is a “large quantum of investment” that interested firms are facing.

“(Developers) are definitely more cautious when viewing such big sites (like Braddell View),” Huttons Real Estate Group head of research Lee Sze-Teck said.

He added that it might be “quite difficult to adjust” the S$2.08 billion price tag in the negotiation period, as the collective sales committee would have to seek an 80 per cent approval from property owners in relation to the lowered price.

“I would not put the chances (of this sale) as high,” Mr Lee said.