More space and greenery mandated for cluster homes!

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said on Friday (Aug 22) it has revised the guidelines for strata landed housing developments, also known as cluster homes, to determine the maximum number of units in an estate.

Under the revised guidelines, which will take effect on Saturday (Aug 23), a new set of formulae will determine the maximum number of houses developers are allowed to build in various types of strata landed housing developments. The new formulae will generally result in fewer units, the URA said in a statement.

“The move addresses feedback from residents in landed housing estates that such developments could inject a disproportionately large number of units, causing additional traffic and parking problems as well as creating a more congested living environment,” the URA said.

There are also new guidelines to enhance the communal facilities and greenery provision within such developments. Developers will have to set aside at least 45% of the land area for communal open space, up from the current 30%. Of this, a minimum of 25% has to be set aside for on-ground greenery while up to 20% can be used for communal facilities like swimming pools and playgrounds.

“By increasing the minimum communal open space to be set aside in strata landed housing developments and mandating minimum on-ground greenery coverage, we hope that strata landed housing developments will further enhance the quality of the living environment for residents,” the URA said.

Source: CNA

The wife and I are glad that URA has finally came out with the latest revision. Hopefully, this will also mean that there will be more "separation space" between rows of cluster homes within the development. One major gripe we have with most of cluster housing projects that we had seen thus far is how close your opposite neighbour's unit is to yours. We always jest that the next biggest benefactor of such development (other than the developer) is probably the curtain makers... which when one stops to ponder over, may not be entirely a joke.

And if you unit is located in a row that is stuck between two other rows of  cluster homes, your unit can come across as rather dark and gloomy (or stuffy even, with the kind of weather we get in Singapore) given that you are "blocked" from both front and back by opposite neighbours at close proximities. 

Click on link below to read the official circular from URA on the revised guidelines:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/237475141/Revised-Guidelines-for-Strata-Landed-Housing-Developments-22-Aug-2014

All about Home Staging

So what is home staging?

In the words of a home buying/selling expert, it is about illusion. It is how David Copperfield would sell a house. It's about perfecting the art of creating moods. Home staging makes your apartment looks bigger, brighter, cleaner, warmer, more loving and, best of all, it makes potential home buyers want to buy it and tenants want to rent it.      

Home staging, or sometimes referred to as "property presentation" or "property styling", is a very established business in the United States and UK. But the concept is still fairly new to Singapore, with only a handful of companies performing the service.  

According to a home staging service provider, there are three distinct features in the home staging approach: 

 

 

1. Creating universal appeal -   This differentiates home staging from interior decorating. The later is centred around the owner's taste and not "everyone". Universal appeal maximizes your pool of potential buyers or tenants. 

2. Suggestion of a lifestyle -   Home staging aims to suggest a lifestyle to aspire to which is connected to the property. This creates a reason beyond the "brick and mortar" considerations. 

3. Creating emotional trigger-points -   Creating a "bond" to the property by eliciting emotionally charged "wow" moments. 

The wife and I were invited by the good folks at Singapore Furniture Rental Pte Ltd (SFR) to witness and blog about the home staging process.  We must admit that prior to this, we have little knowledge about home staging and have largely associated it with what we see in showflats at new launches. Thus we were glad to have the opportunity to learn more about the service. 

SFR is a relative new company founded by 4 young entrepreneurs. It is the first and only furniture rental company that provides home staging services in Singapore. The company has been in the furniture rental business for a year now and have started providing home staging services about 3 months ago. Unlike other service providers, SFR possess a vast array of furniture that they have put on their online catalogue.
 

During the span of 3 months, SFR has completed 6 staging and their portfolio included conservation shop-houses, condo apartments and land homes. The company operates out of a warehouse and office in the Northern part of Singapore (where all the furniture are stored) and outsources the transport and assembly to dedicated partners in order to keep operating costs low. 

SFR provides both long- and short-term furniture rentals. There are also rental packages available for the longer leases. But for home staging purposes, a short-term lease of 3 months is common. And should the unit be sold or rented out earlier than expected, e.g. within the first month, the customer can opt to terminate the rental contract prematurely without penalty as long as they have fulfilled at least one month on the lease. 

A home staging engagement typically begins with a free consultation cum site visit. Thereafter, a staging "floor-plan" is drawn with the proposed furniture set-up. The proposal is discussed and agreed with the customer and once agreed, the actual staging is ready to be performed within 5 days. 

 

The staging that the wife and I attended was for a condo unit of about 1,300sqft located in the Bukit Timah area, which was up for rental.  As the development is older and the unit concerned is located on the ground floor, it can be rather challenging to find tenants especially given the current market condition. Thus the marketing agent has decided (rightly so) to "differentiate his product" by home staging the unit prior to showing it to prospective tenants.                    

Given that property viewing usually last an average of about 10 to 15 minutes, it is crucial to provide the best first impression. All it usually takes is the first couple of seconds for the potential buyer/tenant to decide if they are interested in the apartment. And as you can clearly see from the "before and after" photos, a nicely furnished apartment provides far better eye-candy compared to a bare unit.    

 

Living/Dining (Before)

Kitchen (Before)                                                    Kitchen (After)



Master Bedroom (Before)                                   Master Bedroom (After)

Living/Dining (After)

And for smaller apartments, home staging may provide prospective buyers/tenants with a better perception of space.    

With the large number of new apartments expected to come on-stream within the next two years, both buyers and tenants will be spoilt for choice. As such, it may be increasingly important for older apartments to distinguish themselves to compete with their newer counterparts. And even within the new property sector, the deluge of new homes will definitely create more intense competition on both the resale and rental fronts. So home staging does provide the option for property investors to differentiate their units from others, thereby nudging prospective buyers/tenants over their tipping points to buy or rent.  

 

EcoHouse: More refute from Brazilian government!

London-based developer EcoHouse on Tuesday (Aug 19) provided documents to try to show it has official links with a federal housing programme in Brazil and a state-owned bank, but the Brazilian Embassy here questioned the authenticity and relevance of the papers.

The documents, which EcoHouse chief operating officer Deen Bissessar sent to TODAY, included letters with what appeared to be letterheads of state-owned bank Caixa Economica Federal (CEF) and the state of Rio Grande do Norte, which oversees the Minha Casa, Minha Vida (MCMV) housing programme.

Written in Portuguese and translated into English, the letters largely commended EcoHouse founder Anthony Armstrong Emery for having sound character and recognised his work with the MCMV.

One letter, purportedly from CEF, said Mr Emery had been a client with an “excellent relationship” with the bank and had, “through the company under his administration, contributed to putting into practice the MCMV programme, conducting himself in a distinguished and professional manner”.
Another one, which has the letterhead of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, said Mr Emery was of “irreproachable personal, social and professional conduct”.

On Monday, Brazilian Ambassador to Singapore Luis Fernando de Andrade Serra called on EcoHouse to prove its links to the Brazilian government. After looking at the documents, Mr Serra said they do not conclusively show that the developer has any links with CEF or MCMV.

“We cannot attest to the authenticity. But even if they are real, the information is not relevant and does not determine if EcoHouse is linked to the government,” he said.

Pointing to the letter purportedly by CEF, he said that it does not represent an agreement between Mr Emery and the bank. “It shows that he has an account in the bank, but it doesn’t show the firm is a partner of the bank,” Mr Serra added.

The ambassador also pointed out that the people who signed off on the letters do not have the authority to comment on whether EcoHouse has any link with CEF or the MCMV programme. For instance, the CEF letter was signed by an account manager.

“These sound like reference letters. The people who wrote these letters are not responsible for the programme. The only agencies who can speak on behalf of MCMV are the Ministry of Cities or Caixa,” he said. “Mr Emery may have a wonderful relationship with the bank, but he has so far not proven a real and credible link between EcoHouse and the government.”

Last week, the Brazilian Embassy here issued a statement saying that the Brazilian government has no dealings with EcoHouse, which had touted itself as the only United Kingdom company picked by the Brazilian government to build homes under MCMV.

In response, Mr Bissessar called the matter a “misunderstanding”, which led to Mr Serra calling on EcoHouse to furnish proof of its links to the Brazilian government.

One disgruntled investor, Mr Brijesh Vora, 37, who came forward after reading TODAY’s reports, said he recently received notification that the project which he had ploughed money into last year will be delayed by about six months to a year, due to reasons such as slow and poor construction work. He added that he had invested in several units.

Various media reports have put the number of Singapore investors in EcoHouse projects at between 800 and 1,500.

Up to S$70 million had reportedly been put into three housing projects. Reports have been filed against EcoHouse with the police and the Commercial Affairs Department.

Source: TODAY

Double oh oh... Seems like the money that Singaporean investors have put into EcoHouse is now 冻过水 (Cantonese idiom literally translated as "colder than water", which is used to describe a situation getting from bad to worse).

And speaking of Cantonese idioms, below is an "explained list" (some even with pronunciations) for those who are interested:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/237269352/Cantonese-Idioms-and-What-They-Mean

London home prices: Is the bull-run ending?

Home sellers in London cut asking prices by the most in more than 6 years this month, adding to signs that the property market in the British capital is coming off the boil.

London values fell 5.9% from the previous month to an average £552,783 (S$1.1 million), the biggest drop since December 2007, property website Rightmove said yesterday.

Nationally, prices declined 2.9%, an August record.

While property demand usually weakens during the summer, Rightmove said the slump this year was steeper than it expected.

Tougher new mortgage rules introduced by Bank of England (BOE) Governor Mark Carney, as well as anticipation of higher interest rates, are putting pressure on the market after a surge in value raised concerns that a bubble may develop.

"Buyers and sellers are becoming increasingly aware about personal finances, given that the cost of mortgages are going up and regulators are trying to bring availability down," said Rightmove director Miles Shipside.

"This limits what buyers are willing or able to pay, and helps moderate sellers' price expectations."

Some of the biggest price declines in London were recorded in affluent boroughs including Kensington and Chelsea, Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham, according to the report.

"Top-end sellers are very much discretionary ones, so can delay marketing till a more active time of year," Mr Shipside said.

"That tends to depress property prices more in the higher-priced boroughs, with those that need to sell in summer pricing lower to attract holiday-distracted buyers."

Mr Bruce Dear, head of real estate at law firm Eversheds, said the main problem in London remains a shortage of housing supply, which has pushed property prices to more than 16 times the average salary.

"Urgent policy measures are required to reduce that gap, " he said in a statement.

"The only answer is for the government and local authorities to urgently build more."

Nationally, the annual pace of growth in prices slowed to 5.3% in August from 6.5% in July. The average asking price was £262,401.

Rightmove said the drop in monthly prices is a "lead indicator of a slower market in the second half".

Out of the 10 regions tracked by Rightmove, all but the north of England showed a decline in home values in August from July.

London led the drop, followed by East Anglia with a 4% drop and the south-east with a 2.5% fall.

Source: Bloomberg

So it looks like the law of gravity for so long defied by the London private home market appears to be reasserting itself. So are buyers finally going on strike?

According to a report in The Observer (a British newspaper), the mundane answer to that question may be that prospective buyers simply cannot amass the finance to buy for now. The mortgage market review (MMR), imposed by regulators to avoid a repeat of the lax lending and "liar loans" common before the financial crisis, has already curtailed borrowers from taking jumbo-sized mortgages.

And then there are also others who are repelled by fears of interest rate rises.  

However, British households remain heavily indebted, making the BOE deeply hesitant about raising rates. Given that there are no sign of wage rising, and that the Eurozone economy is heading into reverse, the prospect of an early rate rise is receding yet again.

In addition, the fundamentals that have driven the London price spiral – deeply restricted supply, a fast-growing population, cash buyers, investor-landlords and the capital's role as a safe haven for the global elite's billions – are still largely in place.

The irony is that the cheerleaders for a price crash want only one thing: to buy. With such a large reservoir of potential buyers, it's difficult to envisage much more than a pause in prices.  

 

 

 

Of showflats and d'Leedon...

 

While traveling down Ganges Avenue this morning, the wife and I cannot help but notice that the plot of land directly across from Emerald Park has became quite the choice location for sales gallery/showflat.

First came d'Leedon. Then Mon Jervois/Pollen & Bleu decided to move in as well. And we have noticed today that another new showflat is currently being constructed between the two existing ones.

The wife and I are curious as to which project this new sales gallery is for. Any of our property marketer out there care to enlighten?


And speaking of d'Leedon, the project is certainly taking shape quite nicely. The tower blocks are mostly topped and they are quite a sight to behold if you are traveling along Farrer Road.

  

The one thing that caught our eyes while taking photos of the project was the unique "space age" design of the Villas (townhouses), which looked rather cool.