NEW LAUNCH REVIEWS
THE REEF AT KING'S DOCK
Considering The Reef at King's Dock as your next home or investment property?
Check out our unbiased analysis of this new launch condominium in 2021!
OUR VIDEO
REVIEW
Scroll down for our full text review of The Reef at King's Dock!
jump to sections
Location | Development | Pricing | Rental Yield | Stack Selection | Ask Us!
Location & ACCessibility
When we discuss the location factor, we look closely at the region, accessibility and area transformation.
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Region
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Located along Harbourfront Avenue, The Reef at King’s Dock offers residents a unique waterfront living lifestyle with the sea just at its doorstep. It is a mid-size kind of development that sits on a 99-year leasehold land strip and houses a total of 429 units. Launched in January this year, The Reef at King’s Dock is the latest significant addition to the existing private residential projects in the Keppel bay area.
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Accessibility
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Among the projects at Keppel Bay, The Reef is actually located closest to Harbourfront MRT Interchange Station and VivoCity, Singapore’s largest mall. Its location offers great accessibility, and we will summarize why.
The Reef is only a few minutes’ walk from Harbourfront Interchange Station, so it is really convenient to get to the Purple line and Circle line if you are taking public transport.
As for the amenities in the area, VivoCity and Harbourfront Centre are also just a short walk away. The variety provided at these two huge malls will easily meet your shopping, food and entertainment needs. Other than the malls, there is also Seah Im Food Centre in the vicinity. Keppel Island, which is home to international luxury yachts and also known for the dining options with picturesque views, is also less than five minutes’ drive away. You’re not too far from nature as well — it is just a short drive to Mount Faber and a quick train ride to Labrador Park.
However, do take note that there are not many school options in the immediate area. The nearest schools would be Radin Mas Primary School and CHIJ St Theresa’s Convent, which are more than 1km away.
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Area transformation
The government has also set a major budget for further developments in the area — which makes it really exciting. Known as the Greater Southern Waterfront transformation (which I have also discussed in the review of Normanton Park here), the entire transformation project will take up about 2000 hectares of land, which is equivalent to 6 times of Marina Bay size.
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To put things into perspective for you, this will create new significant attractions, employment and growth in the area. The most relevant project happening near The Reef at King’s Dock is the Sentosa-Brani transformation. The Sentosa-Brani transformation will be completed in phases over the next two to three decades. However, the first milestone project has already begun — Sentosa Sensoryscape, a 30,000 sqm multi-sensory walkway, is a 90 million investment set to be completed in 2022.
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With such a major area transformation planned out in phases and high accessibility, we gave this part a high score of 4.5/5.
development quality & facilities
The Reef at King’s Dock is a joint venture project between Mapletree Investments, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings and Keppel Group, with respective stakes of 61% and 39%. Both developers are renowned developers with years of experience. In fact, Keppel Land has developed three other condominiums in the same area, namely Corals at Keppel Bay, Reflections at Keppel Bay and Carribean at Keppel bay. If history is of any indication, you will be glad to hear that these three projects have exceptional quality in their finishes.
Keppel Land was also awarded the BCA Quality Excellence Award in 2020, which recognizes leading progressive developers for its commitment and consistency in developing buildings through workmanship excellence. Thus, you can be assured of the quality of the units at The Reef at King’s Dock.
How about the facilities provided?
As The Reef is a mid-sized project, the variety of facilities is naturally restricted by the land size. However, you will be able to find standard facilities such as the 50m lap pool, gym, tennis court, function room, and also lawns, ponds and pavilions within the project. We would like to highlight one feature that differentiates them from the others — which is the ingenious idea of adding a 180m floating platform on top of King’s Dock, which fully utilises the space of the water body.
Floating Sun Deck at The Reef at King's Dock
This makes The Reef at King’s Dock the first condominium to feature a floating deck and underwater marine viewing area. The 180-metre floating deck will house swimming pools and a private marine viewing area for residents to view and appreciate the marine ecology in the historic King's Dock, which once housed many ships and vessels in the past.
Given the developers’ reputation and quality experience, and the unique Sun Deck which sets The Reef apart from other condominiums, we believe our high score given here is justified.
COMPETITIVE
PRICING
As mentioned, in the immediate area, there are three existing 99-year leasehold condominiums, namely Reflections at Keppel Bay, Carribean at Keppel Bay and Corals at Keppel Bay. To have a more meaningful comparison, we will be comparing it to the “newest” one among these three — which is Corals at Keppel Bay.
Corals at Keppel Bay was launched in 2013 and it achieved TOP (Temporary Occupation Permit) in 2016. As The Reef at King’s Dock is estimated to achieve TOP in around 2024 to 2025, this would make The Reef at least 8 to 9 years younger than Corals at Keppel Bay by the time of its completion. With that in mind, now let’s talk about pricing. The current price point of transacted units at Corals at Keppel Bay is around $2200 - $2400 psf*.
As a much newer project, we expected the price of the units at The Reef at King’s Dock to be much higher than that of Corals at Keppel Bay. However, buyers will be pleasantly surprised to learn that The Reef at King’s Dock is currently priced at $2100 - $2300 psf*, which is actually lower as compared to its competitor. As a newer project in the area and the fact that it will be at least 8 younger than Corals, being priced lower than its older resale counterpart makes it very attractive. This is also the reason why as of now, 70%* of the units at The Reef at King’s dock have been sold.
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Capital appreciation
Having said that, it’s worth noting that Reflections at Keppel Bay and Corals at Keppel both did not experience any price appreciation over the years. However, that could be largely due to the fact that these two projects were launched at very inopportune times.
Reflections was launched in 2007, and shortly after, the Global Financial Crisis happened. As for Corals, it was launched in 2013, the peak of Singapore’s housing market, and shortly after, property cooling measures were introduced. Thus, in terms of capital appreciation, it may not be fair to compare their performance to the potential of The Reef at King’s Dock.
In conclusion, we believe that The Reef at King’s Dock is generally very attractively priced and is priced to sell.
*Do note that price references and sale references mentioned were made at the time of filming this video and writing this review (February 2021).
POTENTIAL
RENTAL YIELD
To get a good gauge of the potential rental yield, we will be using the rental prices at its closest competitor, Corals at Keppel Bay, as a benchmark. Corals at Keppel Bay is currently renting for their 2 bedroom units at about $4100 to $5000 a month*.
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As The Reef at King’s Dock will be at least 8 years younger than Corals by its time of completion, it should be able to achieve a higher rental rate than the older projects in the area.
However, to be conservative, let's just take the same rental rate of $4100 a month to calculate its potential rental yield. On average, the 2 bedroom units at The Reef are priced* at about $1.6 - $1.7 million. Based on these average prices, we estimate that The Reef will be able to achieve a 3.2% rental yield, which is really impressive for any condominium out there.
The three existing condominiums in the area have also been able to achieve impressive rental volume — About 30% to 40% of their total number of units were rented out over the last 12 months.
With a good estimated potential rental yield and consistent rental performance in the area, we have assigned this factor a score of 4.5/5.
*Do note that rental transaction references mentioned were made at the time of filming this video and writing this review (February 2021).
stack
selection
(Click image to magnify)
When it comes to selecting your unit, you have to first choose the stack you want. Do not confuse stack with block. Stack is part of a block, and different stacks have different facing. For example, if your unit is at Stack 8 on level 7, it means your unit number is #07-08. The unit right below you is #06-08 because it belongs to the same stack. Generally, there are some key factors that you need to take note of:
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View from the stack
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North-South-East-West facing / Cardinal direction. For example, you might want to avoid West Sun.
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Noise level. If you are concerned about any potential noise, avoid facing the expressway, carpark, tennis court, bin centres etc. Even if the stack faces any potential source of noise, consider the distance between the block and the source.
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Block-to-block distance
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Layout efficiency. This is more of the unit itself. Ensure there is no wasted space, no irregular layout or corners, good wall-to-wall distance etc.
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Ideal or not ideal?
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After reviewing the stacks based on the aforementioned factors, we have divided the number of stacks into 3 different categories — the not-so-ideal stacks, average stacks and most ideal stacks*. Please refer to the gif below.
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*Do note that this is our opinion based on our experience and not an official classification by The Reef at King's Dock.
On overall, most of the stacks at The Reef at King’s Dock actually have close block-to-block distance, which is not the best distance if you are someone who is very particular on privacy and do not want your balcony overlooking another unit. Also, due to the blocks being built across an elongated layout of the land, not all stacks in the development enjoy a desirable North-South facing.
We have picked out a few stacks with good facing, which are stacks 47, 48, 59 and 60. These stacks directly face the ocean, and will not have the issue of experiencing direct West Sun. The stacks are also far from any potential noise sources.
The other stacks will either face outwards towards Telok Blangah Road, Harbourfront Towers, King’s Dock or the inner landscape of the project. For stacks facing King’s Dock, you will get a great view of the Floating Sun Deck and the waterfront. However, do note that although you get to enjoy the views, there will be direct West Sun going into the units.
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