Prices of resale strata offices surge

Prices of resale strata offices surged in the third quarter, as a shortage of new space led buyers to look at older developments.

There was a similar trend in the number of transactions, with new-office sales falling as a share of completed deals.

There was much hype in the first half of the year over new strata-titled office developments such as PS100, Oxley Tower and Eon Shenton, but their market share retreated in the third quarter, according to a Knight Frank report.

New strata-titled offices made up 72 per cent of the 686 transactions in the first six months of the year, but that fell to just 21 per cent in the three months to Sept 30, when total sales of 97 offices were recorded.

International Plaza and The Central had the highest number of recorded transactions in the resale market, with both notching up healthy price gains in the third quarter.

There were 11 sales at International Plaza in the second quarter and eight in the third quarter.

The average unit price in the building increased by 11 per cent from the second quarter to $1,866 per sq ft (psf) in the third quarter.

The rise was a more modest 6.5 per cent when the sale prices of similarly sized offices were compared.

The Central recorded around 15 transactions in both the second and third quarters.

Average prices rose by 12.4 per cent to $2,440 psf from the second to the third quarter, and again, when the sales of similarly sized units were compared, the average price increase moderated to 4.2 per cent.

Source: The Straits Times – 3 October 2012