Singapore skyline, showing Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer.
UOL Group—controlled by the family of late baking and real estate billionaire Wee Cho Yaw—said about 87% of its Parktown Residence residential condominium project in the eastern Singapore suburb of Tampines was sold over the weekend, adding to signs of resurgence in housing demand in the city-state.
Prices for the 1,193-unit condo project—which UOL is jointly developing with its subsidiary Singapore Land and CapitaLand Development—start at S$1.07 million ($801,378) for a one-bedroom unit measuring 463 square feet (43 square meters) to as much as S$3.78 million for a five-bedroom apartment measuring 1,679 square feet.
Parktown Residence sits on a 50,679-square-meter 99-year leasehold site bought by the partners from a government land auction in 2023 for S$1.2 billion. The project comprises 12 residential blocks (of six to 12 storeys high) linked to a retail podium, a bus interchange and the future Tampines North MRT station on the Cross Island Line, a 50-kilometer subway that will connect the Jurong Lake District in the west to the Punggol Digital District in the northeast and Changi region in the east when completed in 2032.
“With its prime location and upscale, spacious apartments, Parktown Residence stands out as a highly desirable choice for homeowners seeking both convenience and quality,” Anson Lim, UOL general manager for residential marketing, said in a statement.
Shares of UOL jumped 5.9% to S$5.39 on Monday, the highest close this year. The company is marketing the project as housing demand in Singapore rebounded in the last quarter of 2024.
Sentiment continued to pick up this year, with billionaire Kwek Leng Beng’s City Developments and its partners selling 86% of their residential condominium project in central Singapore district of Toa Payoh during the launch last month. Hong Kong Land’s MCL Land and Chinese homebuilder CSC Land sold more than half of their project in the western town of Clementi over the weekend.
UOL Group has been actively replenishing its landbank to tap into the resilient housing demand in Singapore. In October, UOL, Singapore Land and CapitaLand again partnered to buy Thomson View, a residential condominium in the northern central precinct of Bishan, for S$810 million. The partners plan to redevelop the property, which was originally built in 1975, into a 1,240-unit residential condominium.
UOL, along with United Overseas Bank, is among the assets left by billionaire Wee Cho Yaw—who passed away in February last year at age 95—to his family. With a net worth of $7.8 billion, the Wee family is among the wealthiest in Singapore. The late tycoon’s three sons—Ee Cheong, Ee Chao and Ee Lim—joined the Forbes billionaires list in April this year. Ee Cheong is the vice chairman and CEO of UOB, while Ee Lim is chairman of UOL.
