High-end home sales in the city-state had been on an upswing even before the government in March eased some of its cooling measures in place since 2009, according to Cheng Hsing Yao, group managing director at Guocoland

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s luxury home prices, which have been the worst hit by the government’s property curbs in recent years, are finally showing signs of a recovery, according to developer Guocoland Ltd.

High-end home sales in the city-state had been on an upswing even before the government in March eased some of its cooling measures in place since 2009, according to Cheng Hsing Yao, group managing director at Guocoland.

The changes in March may have added more fuel to the buying sentiment, he said.

“The change in sentiment wasn’t caused by the tweaking alone,” Cheng said in an interview in Singapore.

“The tweaking has contributed but sales for our projects started picking up toward the end of last year.”

Singapore-listed Guocoland is part of Hong Leong Group, a conglomerate with interests in financial services, manufacturing, real estate and hotels.

The company is helmed by billionaire Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan, whose fortune is worth about US$4.7bil, according to the Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.

Guocoland develops luxury homes and offices in Singapore, Malaysia, China and Vietnam.

Guocoland acquired a prime Singapore land site for S$595mil a year ago, paying the highest price for a purely residential site in a government auction since 2009.

It will start marketing its 450-unit Martin Modern project on this site on July 22 and expects to complete construction by 2021. Cheng expects that the majority of the apartments would be bought by Singaporeans and Singapore-based permanent residents.

“Demand is there, with lots of people waiting on the sidelines,” Cheng said. “Prices have bottomed, and we can see a slight firming up already.”

The relative value of high-end properties had become attractive, as the price gap between mass-market and luxury homes had narrowed, he said.