JLL Public Auction

At a public auction conducted by JLL at the Amara hotel last Thursday failed to generate any excitement as property as buyers are still waiting for signs of a further decrease in property prices for Westwood Residences.

As an example, a three-bedroom apartment at Ville Royale was the only property sold out of 16 offered for auction.

Westwood Residences EC Showflat

With an opening bid of $1.81 million this 1389 ft.² 1st floor unit that was vacant and put up for mortgage sale for $1.83 million, which was hardly a tremendous showing.

Villa Royale that was completed in 1993 is located along River Valley Road in District 9; with 43 units, it is considered a prime location for living in Westwood Residences.

Westwood Residences Singapore

While the auction focused mainly on apartments, it also had some landed houses as well as 3 commercial properties one being a two-story shop house, a shop unit, and some factory space.

JLL’s most expensive listing on their list at a price tag of $5.7 million and is located along Rosyth Road and was a semi detached house, which is two-story.

The disturbing thing is that over half of the properties that were put up for auction were defaults on mortgage payments. Banks have put the homes up for auction in an attempt to recoup their investments in Westwood Residences.

Westwood Residences

In fact, if you look at recent media reports and one from JLL themselves, the highest activity in the property auction market last year was directly related to the growing number of default mortgage sales for Westwood Residences.

Many experts believe this is directly related to the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) in June 2013. Since then the number of mortgage defaults that have been listed for auction has risen from 28 and 2013 to 150 at the end of 4th quarter 2014, according to JLL statistics.

26 of the 32 properties sold at auction in 2014 were vacated mortgage default properties. This Park Hill is a result also of the softer leasing market that is occurring in conjunction with the introduction of the TDSR.

There is hope that Westwood Residences market will improve by the time that JLL holds their next auction in the February.

Leave a Reply