A Housing Board jumbo flat in Yishun has sold for more than S$1 million, a first for this HDB town in northern Singapore.
Price tags in the multiple millions for private properties in the most desirable areas, which real estate agents still refer to as Districts 9, 10 and 11, according to their old postal codes, are commonplace.
Earlier this month, a Good Class Bungalow that sits on an expansive 34,216 sq ft site in the Chancery Lane area, sold for more than $66 million, according to EdgeProp, a property portal used by agents, buyers and investors.
But for the relatively humble environs of Yishun, it was a first for a public housing apartment to be sold on the resale market for over a million dollars.
The nearly 2013 sq ft (187 sq m0 jumbo flat in Block 652 on Yishun Avenue 4 went for S$1.038 million and is the second sale in a non-mature HDB estate to cross the S$1 million threshold.
The apartment is on the fourth floor of the 12-storey block and near Yishun Park, Safra Yishun recreation club, among other amenities.
Arissa Tan, 30, one of the property agents representing the flat’s sellers, said that the property was snatched up within three weeks of being listed last November.
The sellers got three offers in all, ranging from S$900,000 to S$1.038 million, Ms Tan was quoted as saying in TODAY on Thursday (Mar 10).
Meanwhile, the price tag surprised a number of residents in the area, especially since the apartment is some 30 years old with a remaining lease of 69 years and four months.
Some expressed concern that prices of flats will continue to escalate, putting them out of reach of their children and grandchildren.
Property analysts say the reason that the apartment crossed the million-dollar mark was because it is so large.
HDB no longer builds jumbo flats, which are two smaller flats combined and range from 134 sq m and 186sqm in size. Such units are considered “very rare and in short supply,” said Ms Tan.
“For this, I was confident we could get a high price. We just needed to wait for the right buyer to come along,” she added.
Despite being so far from the city, the Yishun flat, being the largest of the 29 HDB resale flats priced at S$1 million or more, matched the buyers’ desire for a larger space, said the head of research and consultancy at real estate firm ERA Singapore, Nicholas Mak.
Property analysts think that this sale is an “outlier” and will not automatically mean that others in Yishun will command such a price.
Prices in Singapore’s residential property sector are expected to continue growing given the tapering supply and increasing interest rates in 2022, the popular property website PropertyGuru predicted last December.
Tightened Covid-19 safety measures are thought to have a limited impact on the “appetite for residential property, with prices rising for the sixth consecutive quarter”, it said. /TISG