As Britain faces a housing crunch, London Stock Exchange-listed Berkeley Group is optimistic about the latest offering from its unit, Berkeley Homes.
Located in the Canary Wharf precinct of London Docklands, South Quay Plaza is being launched in Britain this month and will be launched in Singapore in September. The first phase of the development, comprising two residential towers as well as retail frontage, is expected to be completed in 2020.
The introduction of loan curbs here has seen Singaporean property purchases in London fall off since 2013, when the Republic was Berkeley’s largest overseas market. However, JLL UK’s head of residential research, Mr Adam Challis, told The Straits Times that Singapore buyers still make up close to one-fifth of international purchasers in London this year.
Sale prices for South Quay Plaza are set to start at £490,000 (S$1.03 million) for the smallest 486 sq ft studios, which works out to about £1,000 per sq ft. This compares with the average of £850 psf in Canary Wharf, where annual price growth now stands at 4.2 per cent.
The business district of Canary Wharf is part of the Tower Hamlets borough in Greater London. Property prices surged throughout London after the Conservative Party’s election victory in May, and JLL Singapore’s Ms Doris Tan, head of international residential property services, is confident that Greater London will continue to see growth in house prices.
Berkeley Homes is marketing South Quay Plaza, its first project in Canary Wharf, to the growing workforce in the area. Of the total 888 residential units in the development, 57 are studios and 329 are one-bedroom apartments.
Weekly rents in Canary Wharf average £400 for a one-bedroom apartment, but JLL anticipates a cumulative growth of 24.6 per cent from now until 2019, compared with 18.8 per cent for all of Greater London over the same period.Mr Challis added that the rental yield for the South Quay Plaza project is expected to be around 4 per cent.
