Home buyers turn up in droves for Cube 8 apartments

Source : Straits Times – 23 Jan 2010

UNITS at City Developments’ Cube 8 in Thomson Road have been selling like hot cakes since the developer opened its doors for previews on Thursday.

The Straits Times understands that all 80 units released in Phase One have been snapped up. A further 40 released in Phase Two have mostly been sold as well.

The average price of the units sold is $1,250 per sq ft, valuing the three-bedroom units at $1.6 million to $1.8 million, while the four-bedders cost around $2.5 million. The penthouses or sky villas will set buyers back by $3.6 million to $3.8 million.

City Developments will be releasing more units this weekend.

‘The actual units sold would have crossed 100 already,’ said Mr Joseph Tan, executive director for residential at CB Richard Ellis, the project’s marketing agent.’From the look of things, maybe around 20 per cent of the buyers are foreigners, with the rest locals. We also see an equal 50-50 mix of owner-occupiers and investors.

‘All the one-bedroom apartments have been sold, as have most of the two-bedders.’

The freehold project in Thomson Road is on the site of the former The Albany and Thomson Mansion and next to City Developments’ The Arte at Thomson, which was launched for sale in March last year.

While the two projects are adjacent, The Arte is in District 12 while Cube 8 is in District 11.

City Developments opened the doors to Cube 8 on Thursday to former owners of The Albany and Thomson Mansion. Staff and directors were also invited to the private preview.

The public preview started yesterday.

The 36-storey Cube 8 has 177 apartments, comprising 39 one-bedroom units, 58 two-bedders, 67 three-bedders, nine four-bedroom apartments and four sky villas.

Sizes range from about 560 sq ft for a one-bedder to 893 sq ft to 926 sq ft for two-bedroom units. and 1,335 sq ft to 1,475 sq ft for three-bedders. The four-bedroom apartments will be around 1,905 sq ft, while the sky villas will be 3,025 sq ft to 3,229 sq ft.

Ms Tay Huey Ying, director of research and consultancy at Colliers International, said: ‘The strong demand for Cube 8 does not come as a surprise.

‘The market has been rather quiet over the last few months in terms of launch activity. Now that people have come back from their holidays, they are ready to look into serious commitments such as home purchases again.

‘With the economy looking up, job prospects looking up, and wages going up… all these contribute to the positive sentiment.’

Ms Tay added that if the economic recovery remains on track and there are no external events or new government cooling measures, buying should stay healthy this year, although new sales volume is unlikely to repeat last year’s bumper figure.

She expects 7,000 to 9,000 new sales this year, as opposed to the 14,688 new units sold last year.