Portfolio of 32 strata office units at Manhattan House sold for $14.79 mil
The units become part of a portfolio of 33 strata office units that were introduced for sale last October by outstanding advertising and marketing agency ETC. The guide cost was then $24.5 million. The units marketed variety from 323 sq ft to 850 sq ft. Based upon the overall strata location of 19,547 sq ft, the guide price turned out to $1,250 psf.
The commercial building has a 99-year contract with effect from 1969. Thus, it has 43 continuing years. Based on latest advertisements, monthly asking rents for units range from $3.16 psf to $4.02 psf.
Found in the CBD fringe, Manhattan House is within walking range of the Chinatown MRT Interchange Station on the Downtown and North East Lines. It is also beside Pearl’s Hill City Park.
A portfolio of 32 strata office units on the 3rd floor of Manhattan House, a 16-storey business structure on Chin Swee Road. Based on warnings lodged, the 32 units were offered for a sum total of $14.793 million or a typical cost of $783 psf, based on warnings lodged as of August 5.
The office units seem to have been sold in two sets, with 16 negotiated for a total of $7.531 million on June 27, and another 16 units on July 4 for $7.262 million.
Manhattan House has a total amount of 269 strata office units. The 99-year leasehold building was completed in 1976. It was first offered for collective sale in September 2019 for $300 million. In January 2023, a second collective sale attempt was made at a reservation cost of $280 million with JLL as the advertising company. However, there were no takers back then.
The customers are likely to be investors, hoping to take a placement in the event of a successful en bloc sale of the building in the future. The units on the third ground control 9% of the total strata area of the establishment, and 13% of the total share worth.
Under the 2019 Master Plan, the 4167.7 sq m (44,861 sq ft) site is zoned “commercial” with a gross plot proportion of 4.7. However, URA has indicated that the site might be rezoned to “housing with commercial at first storey”, with a significant part of the site allowed for a residential tower of as much as 30 storeys with an optimum gross floor location of around 21,000 sq m (226,044 sq ft).
Swee Shou Fern, head of investment advisory at ETC, who realtored the sale, states that the 32 strata office units were purchased “for investment”. However, she diminished to talk about the customer.
Based on real property title searches, the purchaser of the strata units is Abwin (HP) Pte Ltd, an entity associated to one of the biggest secondhand car suppliers in Singapore, that also offers motor financing and hire acquisition.
