Home owners at freehold condominium Cairnhill Mansions are looking to ride the wave of collective sales as they gear up for their fifth attempt at selling their estate.



The public tender will be called within weeks, marketing agent CBRE said yesterday.

Owners are floating a guide price of $362 million, a shade higher than what they hoped for in 2011, their last bid for a collective sale.

They stand to reap at least $5.7 million each, or about $2,800 per sq ft (psf). Nearby units in similar projects have sold at between $1,731 psf and $3,919 psf this year.

The 61-apartment complex in  Cairnhill Road has a maximum gross floor area of roughly 172,240 sq ft, which could yield as many as 140 new units in the redevelopment.

ZACD Group executive director Nicholas Mak said the site "is not really very big, compared with HUDC estates". But he noted that the asking price, at $2,101 psf per plot ratio (ppr), puts the price tag at the top of the charts on a unit basis.

The estate's prime address is expected to carry a premium.

CBRE's director of capital markets, Mr Galven Tan, said: "Judging by the trigger of the land parcel in Jiak Kim Street and the market response to the site, it is clear that developers are keen to enter the high-end residential segment. Thus far, private land sale sites have been confined to the suburban areas."

The former Zouk club site moved off the government land sales reserve list last Friday after a developer committed to bid at least $689.4 million.

Cairnhill Mansions tried for a collective sale in 2014, but could not muster up the required support of 80 per cent of owners. It did in 2011 but no buyer was willing to bite at the $361.5 million reserve price.

But "stranger things have happened this year" with the effervescent market for residential collective sales, said Mr Mak, which could bode well for the fresh attempt.

Mr Alan Cheong, senior director of research and consultancy at Savills, told The Straits Times: "Given the hunger developers have for redevelopment land, the en bloc may succeed this time round with a price biased towards the upper end of the $2,200 to $2,500 psf ppr range."