View of The Albany, Thomson Mansion & the Arte from PIE flyover

 This is the site that the new Cube 8 by CDL will be located. Currently it is sitting the old development of the Albany & Thomson Mansion. They were acquired by CDL in 2006 & 2007. The Albany was acquired for $65mil with a plot ratio of 2.8, with an additional of development charge of $174,000 (which is insignificant to the developer).

View towards The Albany & Thomson Mansion from Thomson Road, Google streetview

Not sure if you could recall just a year or more ago when all nations were suffering from economic crisis from the credit crunch, many new developments were held back and deferred. The Albany and Thomson Mansion were one of them. The developers had delayed chasing out the old owners by charging a rental fee, and giving out master lease in leasing the vacant units to students and workers. They were very popular since after all these are good location. Therefore The Albany and Thomson Mansion short term leases were particularly popular with the East Asia Institute of Management (EASB) foreign students in Ah Hood Road.

Therefore you are still able to see the existing developments standing there, rather than in the process of demolition since the Cube 8 has been sold so well. It is no reason why the developer does not rush to complete the project fast and start collecting the money to pay off the hefty financing cost. I believe it must have to do with the lease contract with the tenant’s term. However it is apparent that most of the units are being vacated now. So we should be seeing much of the demolition and construction coming along the way.

Personally I was surprised the Cube 8 was being priced at a challenging price tag of $1250 psf and still able to be sold well. Maybe it is due to the rare title of freehold condominium that we are able to get with common facilities like tennis court, with other must have functions like gym, fitness area, children playground and others.

In last year March, the adjacent Arte by CDL was launched in a down period and was sold like hot cakes at an average price of $880 psf. Here we are talking about a 40% increase in a less than 1 year time for Cube 8. Yet they are developments in the same location by same developers. Isn’t it a bit ironic? So you wouldn’t  deny reckoning that real estate and stock markets are much driven by market sentiment, rather than the supply and demand factors.

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