High Park Residences (launched July 2015)

High Park Residences (Sengkang)

Notes: 

This article only represents my personal view based on technical and financial consideration. These opinions are based on my 11 over years experience in the construction industry covering projects from residential, healthcare, institution, industrial and master planning covering TOD (transport oriented development) and HOD (health oriented development) in China, Singapore and Malaysia.  

Disclaimer: 

Readers are advice to use information available here for FREE as a study guideline only and use it at your own risk. (you can choose to get a paid customized report with verified data and advice, email me at chua.soon.ching@gmail.com or chua.soon.ching@hausanalyst.com for more information)

Project Background

This project was brought to you by CEL, Heeton and KSH (the developers) and P&T Consultants (the architect, who brought you the Sengkang EC famously named Austville!). CEL is a subsidiary of Chip Eng Seng Corp Ltd which is a contruction based company who did Pinnacle @ Duxton (http://www.chipengseng.com.sg/introduction.php).

This development consists of 2 plots of land tendered back in 2014 by URA. Parcel A with land size 16,603.9sqm and parcel B with land size 17,413.9 sqm with maximum GFA 49,812 sqm and 52,242 sqm each. This development height is cap at 90m AMSL meaning 90m above mean sea level which is 100m. The top most tips shouldn’t be touching 190m in short (usually this is due to air space control where there will be height control by CAAS). Existing level from survey plan shown that to the north the level is at average 122m while to the south averaging at 115m, that’s 7m difference which is amounted to 2 levels and why the whole development is step down from North (23 sty) to South (25 sty) (of course with consideration of basement, the level can be adjusted downwards as long as the 1^st storey is at least 600mm or more higher than the entrance road level). 

Many may wonder why there’s landed property in this development. The simple answer is because facing west of the site which is next to the existing landed property, there’s a requirement of up to 25m of the land from west can only build building which is not more than 3 storeys. Meaning these landed property will act as a buffer between this high rise development and the existing landed property along Lorong Tanggam. Last I heard only 1 left for sale!

Lift ratio

Out of the curiosity and to understand why this development is so sought after, I went to the show flat to take a look and try to understand how the marketing work. Smaller units are technically sold out and they have closed the show unit. Technically I’m still dumbfounded! Maybe the price quantum is low! Or maybe they were sold the idea of renting these studio units in the future!  Block 31 which consists of 456 units is basically sharing 4 lifts, which is with ratio of 1:114. I hope the future owner will have patient to wait at the lift lobby and not complaining too much! Even the May 2015 BTO Tampines Green Weave with studio units has a lift ratio of 1:86! Talking about lift, there will be 2 blocks with a private lift unit. Next thing I asked the sales agents, how much do these owners have to pay for maintenance since they have their own private lift? Answer is based on unit share which is technically other units without private lifts will share a portion of the private lifts owner maintenance in the future because everyone just pay a sum based on their unit share into maintenance fund to manage the whole estate including these private lift’s owner’s lift! So, those buying private lift units are technically a bargain. While stack 25 and 29 will have a lift ratio of 1:56 minus the private lift, others will have 1:59, 1:62 and 1:64. Based on best practice, a good lift ratio would be in the region of 1:40 to 1:60 for HDB BTO. Of course they can argue that they can provide you with a higher speed lift which I don’t think the agents will have the answer.

Unit layout

I’m not going to go through all units as I will exhaust you with all the technical details. I will take 3 bedroom units as an example, the type 3D1 which is 1 of the show unit. First, the alcove area or u named it foyer in other term. To me, technically that’s waste of space. The reason for it being they need to cramp too many units in a single floor and trying their best to reduce the common area like lifts and staircase, thus u create these funny corner to go into your unit. A direct entry into Dining/Living setting can be resolve via ID method which cost a lot less than paying 3.5sqm x S$9000 psm for that space (the money is enough to pay for a simple ID package for 1 whole unit). There’s no household shelter in this development because they are using staircase shelter which means the staircase need to be pressurized 24-7 for the rest of this development lifespan.

A quick comparison between a BTO layout and this 3 room layout will show that the rooms here are too small! Master bedroom at 11.70 sqm when a BTO have 13.50-15 sqm and bedroom 2 and 3 at 8.40 sqm compare to BTO with 11.0-12.0 sqm. More areas are given to bath at 4.70 sqm compare to BTO at 3.30 sqm, maybe the term luxury mean you can spend more time in washroom? A total area of 10.60 sqm was given out to balcony which usually will cost ½ of constructing a full wall area. Kitchen area is at 6.80 sqm compare to 9.0 for a BTO. I have to say that we should start to look into preparing for a super single bed size for bedroom 2 and 3 in the future! In short, the price quantum is lower partly due to reduced size of units and other reasons which we can have coffee chat over! By the way, while the latest intention by MND to get all developer to build the exact show flat and still with some loop holes like tapes on the floor are good, I still think that there should be more improvement like giving buyers access to all information for the lift lobby area or else you going to get a DBSS v2.0 fiasco

Technically as a buyer, there are still many aspect of this development which I will look into before I decide to put in my money like the amount of landscape and facilities which I can tell you that the current amount of maintenance fees is not sufficient and will boom like balloon in the future (based on my current development) due to man power shortage and the quantum of condominiums in the Singapore. Some ID proposal of changing layout (show unit for type 5L) like new entrance to washroom will cause water proof membrane fail to function and leaking issue will ensue not just your own unit but also the unit directly under yours.      

West sun

What surprised me was many of those west sun facing big units have been sold out! Do these buyers really know what there are buying into? What does facing west and hot sun mean? It means higher PUB bill going forward, reinforced concrete do expand and contract under weather exposure and extreme exposure will accelerate the process, it means you need to spend more on air cons, it means when you come back at night you will feel like your house is an oven, wear and tear will happen at a faster rate and with year 2015 being recorded as the hottest year on record…

WE provide service to analyse this development to this level of details: http://raremerchandise.blogspot.sg/2015/06/may-bto-2015-tampines-green-weave.html

Email me for more information. Buying a house easily is the largest investment in everyone's lifetime, you should understand the product before you even put a dollar into it. A good property with good attribute will maintain it's value while others will suffer extensively when price correction happen. A smart investor look for smart investment during price correction.

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