Soleil, a French word for ‘sun’, is designed as a shining light to illuminate a new approach to lifestyle. I thought this is a pretty beautiful and cool name given for a development.  This development comes with 2 iconic residential towers with exciting curvy cladding to the elegant built form.

Soleil @ Sinaran is located along Sinaran Drive in the Novena area.  Frasers Centrepoint is the developer. They were awarded of the piece of land through the Government Land Sales (GLS)  from URA for the top bidder in 2006. It is a 417-unit lifestyle residential condominium, with a ‘Lifestyle Development’ in mind to offer luxurious, distinctive styling and modern comforts to young professionals.

Development details

Location

Located close to the Novena MRT station, Soleil @ Sinaran at 2  & 6 Sinaran Drive straddles the Newton-Novena belt. The location is very prime, with well established and popular high end neighbourhoods nearby. Only steps away from the Novena MRT station, many homebuyers and investors will be attractive by its amenities and good schools nearby. The location also offers quick and easy access to CBD & Orchard.

The main attraction of the place to me, other than the proximity to Novena MRT station, is the 3 shopping centres nearby. Other than Tampines MRT station having 4 shopping centres nearby, Novena is the only other town that has 3 sizeable shopping centres around the MRT station area. The Velocity @ Novena, Square 2 and the United Square have each of their distinctive market and targeted clients. From sports goers, kids and family oriented activities, Korean fashion, to F&B, you are able to find them here.

As mentioned in the earlier article on Parkway Hospital, staying in the medical vicinity may not sound attractive to many people, especially the Chinese. Maybe due to the reason, the residential units’ transactions at the areas of Moulmein & Sinaran Drive have not been as bullish as in Newton areas. However I have been seeing more people forgoing the old perception, especially for the young couples who are looking forwards to more convenience and amenities in a home hunt. In long run, I believe the price appreciation will catch up with other prime areas in Newton and other parts of Novena.

Developer

After seeing several units in One Leicester and One St Michael condominiums, the impression I have for Frasers Centrepoint Homes is pretty good. Though they are considered pretty young with establishment since 1999, they have been delivering quality homes with good standards.

Their other more high profile residential projects consists of 8@Woodleigh, Caspian, Martin Place Residences, Waterfront Waves, Soleil @ Sinaran, St. Thomas Suites, The Azure (at Sentosa Cove), One Jervois and 8 @ Mount Sophia.

Development Figure Crunching

“Currently ranked among the top-selling developers in Singapore’s residential property market, Frasers Centrepoint Homes has built more than 9,000 quality homes. Its success is due largely to a mix of strong attributes – choice locations, well-timed marketing and sales launches, attractive pricing and constant product refinement.”

From Frasers Centrepoint website

As Frasers Centrepoint has prided themselves on their success due to choice locations and strategic well-timed marketing and sales, let’s take a look at the profitability of Soleil project:

Total saleable area                     = 469,555 sqft   (gfa as an indicator for saleable area)

Average selling price                  = $1,500 psf

Gross Development value            = Total saleable area x avg selling price = $704.3mil

Land Cost                                 = $ 238 mil (GLS in 2006)

Main Contract cost                     = $142.88 mil

Estimated Consultancy fee inclusive authority submission= 10% of construction cost = $14.288 mil

Miscellaneous cost i.e. financing, marketing, etc = 10% of GDV= $70.4 mil

Profit                                         = $239 mil

$239 mil is considered a bumper earning to the developer with a fat healthy profit margin of 34%. A good flash back to the time when Frasers Centrepoint purchased the land in 2006 at relatively good price, at $507 psf ppr. Compared to the jaw dropping $1600 psf ppr that Parkway bidded the hospital site at Irrawady Road, the  Soleil @ Sinaran land bid may be considered a dirt cheap bargain for Frasers Centrepoint.

As to date, not all the units have been sold. We are still able to see the sales gallery on site, though the pricing has been adjusted upwards from the initial launched prices.

Not sure if you could recall the sales started well in Aug 2007. I could still remember long queue forming outside the existing sales gallery one day before the official launch. However towards the end of 2007, the news of US sub-prime woes had hit Singapore. Our property market was also badly affected. For the Soleil @ Sinaran, it was once reported than more than 10% of buyers did not exercise their options to purchase their chosen units. URA’s figures for August showed that 394 out of a total of 417 units launched in the development had been sold, but the number sold fell to 352 in September’s data. Frasers Centrepoint confirmed that 42 options were not exercised before their deadlines, but added that 12 of the units involved have since been resold.

Today, market has recovered fully and is reaching another peak as it appears. There are more sub-sale transactions in the market than the direct sales from the developer. It seems we have stepped out of the period, and property market is reaching higher than ever. With the development drawing close to building completion and TOP, we expect to see more transactions closing.

To be continued with Part 2