KYA Private Advisory · Internal

Collective Sale Viability Model

A residual land value model that asks one question per development: can a developer pay these owners more than they will accept, and still make its margin?

Methodology

The model works backwards from what a completed project can sell for, subtracts everything that must be paid before owners see a cent, and compares what is left against what owners will accept. Nothing is scored on "feel".

achievable selling PSF from launch pricing within 3km ↓ land budget = maxLandPsf(sell) × redevelopment GFA − Land Betterment Charge on the GFA uplift only − Lease Upgrading Premium leasehold sites, Bala's Table to a fresh 99 years − ABSD 5% non-remissible; the 35% is remitted upfront ↓ MAX PAYABLE TO OWNERS ÷ existing units vs OWNER REQUIREMENT = max( market value × 1.45 , replacement unit × 0.85 ) ↓ ECONOMICS = payable ÷ required × CONSENT (age tier, owner count) = SCORE

The cost stack is measured, not assumed

Rather than guessing a construction cost, the land-to-breakeven relationship is regressed from 66 real launches that carry both a land price and a published breakeven:

breakeven PSF = 339 + 1.5228 × land PSF ppr R² = 0.948, n = 66 realised margin over breakeven: median +25.4% (n = 37)

Planning envelope

Site area and zoned plot ratio come from URA Master Plan 2025 parcel geometry, joined by point-in-polygon to 1,771 developments. The dwelling-unit cap follows URA circular DC22-10: GFA ÷ 85 sqm as standard, ÷ 100 sqm in nine named localities, and no cap at all in the Central Area.

Consent thresholds

Age tiers follow the Land Titles (Strata) (Amendment) Bill introduced 4 August 2026 — 90% under 10 years, 80% for 10–39, 70% for 40–59, 65% for 60+. The Bill simultaneously tightens the requisition bar to 35%, halves the signature window to six months, and extends the post-failure wait to three years, so its net effect is not assumed to be positive.

Factors that earn their place

What we tested and rejected

Widely repeated criteria that do not survive contact with the data.

Rejected
MRT proximity. 86% of sold en blocs sit within 800m of a station — and so do 87% of all 30-year-old condos. Lift 0.98×. Tightening to 500m or 300m does not rescue it: at every radius the base rate falls inside the confidence interval. Median distance is 550m for sold sites against 510m for the universe. Location is already priced through the selling-price input; adding it again would double-count.
Rejected
Freehold preference. 12 of 14 sold sites are freehold, but the two largest deals — Chuan Park ($890m) and Loyang Valley ($880m) — are both 99-year leasehold with ~55 years left, precisely what the advice says to avoid. The skew is a size artefact. The only published study finds tenure insignificant (p = 0.18 and 0.95).
Rejected
Acquisition-cost ceiling. Above $1bn: 12% of candidates, 14% of sold — lift 1.19×. Loyang Valley and Chuan Park both exceeded $1bn all-in and both sold. Acquisition cost also correlates +0.90 with unit count, which is already in the model.
Demoted
Plot ratio gap as a gate. Real, but not a requirement. Median measured uplift is 1.38×, five of fourteen are below 1.2×, and Chuan Park sold at 1.05× — already built to 96% of its zoning. Density and land value are substitutes (corr −0.46), so the model treats them as alternative paths rather than a filter.
Adopted
Unit count. The strongest survivor. Median completed deal 2021–26 is 22 units; 21 of 24 are under 150. Significant at p = 0.00 in both published logit specifications.

Validation against completed sales

For each completed collective sale, the model's maximum payable to owners against the price actually paid. Inputs are the site's real parcel geometry and the caveat record.

0.92
Median predicted ÷ actual
13 / 14
Within ±40%
+83%
Median realised premium to owners

The model runs slightly conservative by design — it computes a ceiling on what a developer can pay, and deals clear near but under it. Not out-of-sample: the LBC rate was calibrated on Loyang Valley, which appears in this table.

Top 20 by score

Ranked from developments aged 30+ with a readable parcel, after excluding commercial and mixed strata and developments under 10 units.

exPR existing plot ratio · GPR zoned · X density uplift · Econ payable ÷ required, ≥1 means a deal can clear · Acq total acquisition cost including ABSD, BSD, LBC and lease premium.

Live attempts

Developments currently launched for collective sale. These are the prospective test set — a failure is worth as much as a sale, because it is the only way to measure false positives.

Worked example — Lakeside Towers, asking $350m

144 units on 153,237 sqft, GPR 2.1, 99-year lease from ~1979, third attempt. Existing plot ratio ~1.81 gives just 1.16× uplift, and the lease top-up premium takes $59–91m off the top before owners see anything.

The ask implies $968 psf ppr, close to the $1,077 psf ppr its neighbour Lakeside Apartments achieved in May 2022 — which is presumably how it was set. But that neighbour was less built-out with a longer lease. On residual value the ask needs about $3,112 psf to work, against roughly $2,500 for the nearest launch. Every completed deal cleared at 70–143% of model max payable; this ask is around 135–210% of it.

Known limitations