New record price for Sentosa Cove condo plot

SENTOSA Cove's latest condominium plot has set another record price for land in the luxury enclave.

Its 99-year leasehold Seaview Collection attracted five bids when its tender closed yesterday.

The highest is said to be more than $1,300 per sq ft per plot ratio (psf ppr) - or at least $440 million. It beat the $1,308 psf ppr Sentosa land record set by a bungalow plot in November.

Sources said boutique developer Ho Bee tabled the top bid for Seaview, closely followed by CapitaLand. City Developments, Frasers Centrepoint and Lippo Group are said to be the other bidders.

All the bids for the 157,108 sq ft site came in above $1,000 psf ppr, said Sentosa Cove. This means that even the lowest bid exceeded the previous $919 psf ppr record for condo land, also set by Ho Bee, for the Waterfront Collection last year.

At $1,300 psf ppr for Seaview, the break-even price for the plot would be about $1,800 psf ppr, which means the winning developer would have to price the condo units in excess of $2,000 psf, said consultants.

Mr Nicholas Mak, director of research and consultancy at Knight Frank, noted that the top bid 'is near some of the record land prices achieved for freehold land in districts 9 and 10'.

Other experts expressed concern that the recent stock market correction could affect investor sentiment in the property market.

FIONA CHAN