St Thomas Walk homes highly priced

The market for luxury homes may be languishing in the doldrums recently but at least one enclave has been holding its own.

The cluster of private homes near St Thomas Walk, off the Orchard Road shopping belt, has notched up decent price gains, property consultants said.

The median price of new uncompleted homes in the area was $2,353 per sq ft (psf) as of the third quarter of the year.
That is a 25 per cent gain from that in the same quarter in 2009.

This translates to hefty prices for new projects. For instance, the upcoming 462-unit Twin Peaks was sold for a median price of $2,703 psf last month.

Price gains in the secondary market were even more substantial, with resale prices surging 46 per cent in about three years, narrowing the price gap between those and new homes.

As of the third quarter of the year, resale units in the area averaged $2,084 psf, up from $1,427 psf in the first quarter of 2009.

St Thomas area outperformed the high-end market - known as the core central region (CCR) - as a whole, with overall prices up 0.7 per cent from last year, against the CCR's 0.1 per cent rise.

High-end homes generally refer to those in the CCR, with a higher percentage of foreign buyers. Since the second last round of cooling measures last year, this group of buyers has had to fork out 10 per cent more for property purchases.
The St Thomas area sits behind Somerset MRT station and is home to residents living in more than 2,000 private flats.
Upcoming projects like Espada, Skyline 360 @ St Thomas Walk and The Boutiq will add more than 1,000 units in the next few years.

Interest in these has been healthy - more than half of the units have been sold - with investors likely making up the bulk of buyers, he added. This is partly because many of the upcoming projects have a high proportion of shoebox units, which typically refer to homes of about 500 sq ft and smaller.

But rents are highly variable. Data from the second quarter showed they ranged from just $3 to $6.30 psf monthly.
Investment potential is high for this area, given its proximity to the malls and other amenities in Orchard Road.
Also, new homes here are cheaper than those in the nearby Orchard Boulevard and Anguilla areas, which can cost some $4,100 to $4,300 psf.

Credit from The Straits Times

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St Thomas Walk homes highly priced

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