GuocoLand is set to add River Valley Green (Parcel B) to its land bank (Image: Google)
Singapore’s GuocoLand continued to demonstrate its appetite for land this past week as the developer placed the highest of five bids for a residential site in Singapore’s River Valley area.
The builder controlled by tycoon Quek Leng Chan offered S$627.8 million ($463.9 million) for the rights to build up to 41,076 square metres (442,138 square feet) of space on the plot next to the Great World MRT station, according to Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority. The offer topped bids from rivals Sing Holdings Residential, Gordon Tang’s SingHaiyi Group, Hong Leong Group’s Hong Realty and Chinese-backed Kingsford Group.
The project is expected to yield 475 homes, according to real estate agency PropNex, with GuocoLand’s bid, which was made through a government land sale tender, equivalent to S$1,420 per square foot of gross floor area, per the URA. On a price per square foot basis, GuocoLand’s bid is 7 percent above what Wing Tai Holdings paid for an adjacent site a year ago, with analysts pointing to the tender results as a sign of developer optimism.
“Following months of relatively measured land tender participation, the tender results for the River Valley Green (Parcel B) plot had in our view surprised on the upside, particularly given the competing new private housing supply in the area,” Wong Siew Ying, head of research and content at PropNex said in a statement. “The number of bids garnered and top bid land rate were above our expectations.”
Special Situation
Despite Singapore Minister for National Development Desmond Lee signaling one month ago that the government could consider a fresh round of market curbs should home prices continue to rise, GuocoLand’s offer, and the number of bids made for the 11,736 square metre site, exceeded most analysts’ expectations.
Quek Leng Chan’s GuocoLand continues to pursue more sites
The attributes of the site on River Valley Green road, including lying just north of Kim Seng Park along the banks of the Singapore River, were seen as potentially boosting its value.
“Developers may have viewed the site more favourably due to its long frontage facing the Singapore River compared to the other River Valley Green sites,” said Tricia Song, head of research for Singapore and Southeast Asia at CBRE.
PropNex’ Wong pointed out that there are several educational institutions in the area, including River Valley Primary School, Alexandra Primary School, Zhangde Primary, Outram Secondary School and Gan Eng Seng Secondary School, with the project also located close to Great World City mall and Orchard Road.
River Valley Revival
River Valley Green (Parcel B) is one of three River Valley Green sites to have been included in Singapore’s government land sales programme recently, with Parcel A having been awarded to Wing Tai in June of last year. Parcel C is currently included in the URA’s reserve list, where it could be released for tender in response to a qualifying application from an interested developer.
A pair of Zion Road site sold by the URA in 2024 are also located close to the River Valley Green (Parcel B) plot with this most recent sale attracting the highest bid per square foot of gross floor area.
Zion Road (Parcel A), which included 435 long-stay apartments, was sold to a City Developments Ltd and Mitsui Fudosan joint venture for the equivalent of S$1,202 per square foot in April of last year. Wing Tai paid S$1,325 per square foot for River Valley Green (Parcel A) and Robert Kuok’s Allgreen Properties paid S$1,304 per square foot for Zion Road (Parcel B) in August of last year.
GuocoLand Keeps Bidding
GuocoLand bid aggressively for River Valley Green (Parcel B) after prices for private homes in Singapore rose 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024, posting the strongest quarterly price growth of the year. That increase in home prices coincided with a 25 percent jump in home sales during the October through December period.
The developer has been among Singapore’s most land-hungry builders in the past year, teaming up with Hong Leong Holdings, the private holding company of Quek Leng Chan’s cousin, Kwek Leng Beng, in April of 2024 to place the sole bid of S$779.6 million for a site along Upper Thomson Road in Singapore’s northern region.
In November, a GuocoLand joint venture agreed to pay S$349.9 million for a 400-home site along Faber Walk in the Clementi area, and in January the company teamed up with unit of Chinese construction giant CSCEC and Hong Leong Group to win a Tengah Garden Avenue site in western Singapore for S$675 million.
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