Sentosa
Cove sets new record for bungalow land
Weekend August 26, 2006
Super-rich drive up in style for bungalow land auction
Jasmine Yin
jasmine.yin@newstoday.com.sg
IT WAS an auction to live at what is dubbed the "world's most
desirable address" - and the bidders had the wheels to prove
it.
Among the gleaming luxury cars parked outside the glass-panelled
Sentosa Cove sales and information centre yesterday afternoon were
at two Rolls Royces and three Lamborghinis. Remarked one participant
of the closed-door auction: "They make the other Mercedes Benz,
Lexus and BMW cars that are parked here look run-of-the-mill."
On offer were 12 prime South Cove Collection bungalow land parcels
- nine plots face the ocean, two the waterway and one the fairway.
Almost 400 bidders showed up, Sentosa spokesperson Robin Goh told
Today. Half of them were Singaporeans.There was "an air of
anticipation" inside the centre, as the bidders - many of whom
were from the banking, finance and medical professions - sipped
on wine and dined on Les Amis-catered baby scallops and French sausages
while waiting for the auction to begin.
From 3.20pm, the gloves were off. "It was fiercely contested
and very exciting, especially for the lesser mortals present,"
Mr Goh quipped. "Everybody was trying to out-do each other."
When the auction began, each new bid upped the price by $20,000
and one bidder got impatient. The price had reached $4.5 million
and he decided to hasten the pace.
"He just put up his bidding card and stated his price of $4.8
million. Then someone said, '$4.9 mil' and another shouted out '$4.95
mil'. They didn't want to hit each other $20,000 at a time, which
was making the auction slow," said Mr Goh.
The auction proceedings - held in conjunction with Christie's Great
Estates - were also transmitted live via web-cast to some 10 registered
bidders in Australia, London, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Said to be the first in Singapore real estate auctions, the web-cast
enabled bidders to witness the proceedings and place their bids
via telephone to their representatives present at the auction.
Of the 12 successful bidders, eight were Singaporean and the rest
were from Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Myanmar. All of the bungalow
land parcels achieved "benchmark highs", with an ocean-front
land parcel fetching $1,039 per sq foot (psf). The lowest land parcel
- a waterway parcel - yesterday hit $656 psf. A good class bungalow
in Singapore is said to fetch around $650 psf and till recently,
the record price at Sentosa Cove was $500 psf.
The most expensive sale yesterday yielded $8.15 million.
An "extremely pleased" Ms Jennie Chua, who chairs Sentosa
Cove and Sentosa and was present at the auction, said that the "bids
have exceeded our expectations."
Added Sentosa Cove's general manager Margaret Goh: "This highly-anticipated
auction not only sets the stage for subsequent release of our land
parcels in the South Cove, but also hastens the stunning transformation
of Sentosa Cove into a showcase of the best in luxury real estate
in Singapore."
Unsuccessful bidders will still get another shot, as there are
144 more South Cove bungalow land parcels and four condominium land
parcels yielding 972 homes, that are set to go on sale.
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