CDL Bests Five Rival Bids to Place Top Offer of $472M for Singapore Residential Site

Singapore developers have shown that attractive residential sites can still spur competitive bidding with top builder City Developments Ltd placing the top offer for a plot in the city-state’s Jurong Lake in a tender which closed on Tuesday.

The developer controlled by tycoon Kwek Leng Beng offered S$608 million ($472.4 million) to edge out five competing bids for the site adjacent to the Lakeside MRT station, according to an announcement by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, which organised the tender. With the 145,152 square foot (13,485 square metre) plot set to yield 537,065 square feet of housing, CDL’s bid is equivalent to $$1,132 per square foot of gross floor area.

With a flood of new supply having led to cautious bidding in recent government land sales, analysts pointed to strong demand for the Jurong site as the government works to boost the suburban hub as an alternative city centre.

“The Lakeside Drive GLS (government land sale) site is shaping up to be a highly attractive opportunity for developers, as reflected in the strong response it received, drawing a total of 6 bids,” said Mohan Sandrasegeran, head of research and data analytics at Singapore Realtors Inc. “This marks the second-highest number of bids for a GLS site this year, following the eight bids submitted for the Bayshore Road parcel.”

Sandrasegeran attributed the developer response to the site’s location, buyer catchment, and potential market demand, with analysts at Propnex Realty noting that, on the basis of price per square foot of built area, CDL’s offer marks one of the highest bids for a residential site outside of Singapore’s central region in recent years.

575 Homes on the Way

With Singapore’s government land sales organised in a two-step process under which the authorities review project design proposals after receiving financial offers, CDL will have to wait some days before learning if it can claim its prize.

With the tender having opened in April, CDL’s bid outstripped a joint offer by Frasers Property and Mitsubishi Estate by 10 percent, with developers Sing Holdings, Wee Hur and Sim Lian also making offers. Intrepid Investments, a private firm owned by CDL controlling shareholder Hong Leong Group Singapore also placed a joint bid together with TID Residential, a Hong Leong joint venture with Mitsui Fudosan. 

The lowest bid placed, by Sim Lian Group fell nearly 25 percent short of CDL’s offer.

The six bids were the second-most received in a government land sale this year, following  the S$1,388 which Gordon Tang’s SingHaiYI paid in the Bayshore Road tender on Singapore’s East Coast in March. 

Wong Siew Ying, head of research and content expects that, given the bids place, homes in the Lakeside Drive site could sell for an average of more than S$2,400 per square foot, with the URA estimating that the property will yield 575 homes above a ground floor retail area.

Housing Market Stays Strong

Developer enthusiasm for the Lakeside Drive site came after an April tender for a site at the Media Circle development in the One North area failed to draw an offer while the sale of a Lentor Gardens parcel received just two offers.

Sales of new private homes in Singapore, excluding the hybrid public-prive executive condo sector, fell 9.1 percent in April compared to March, according to URA data. However, the 663 units sold was still more than double the 301 homes sold in the segment during the same month last year.

In an effort to tamp down housing prices, Singapore’s government has continued to push more residential sites into the market, with the government land sale programme for the first half of this year including sites which may yield 8,505 homes – up from 8,140 in the second half of 2024, according to figures from the country’s Ministry of National Development. 

The 11,110 homes included in the 2024 land sale programme were the most since 2013, with the influx of new supply leading to more cautious bidding from developers.