Check out this undiscovered investment bonanza in Queenstown

How come everyone's been blind to its potential?

You wouldn't believe what a treasure chest of property locations Queenstown is. The astounding amount of office and business park spaces have been sitting there for years waiting to get noticed.

According to Savills, much has been covered on the leasing attractiveness of various residential locations because of their proximity to commercial developments. However, a place that has slipped the attention of many is the Buona Vista-one-north-Pasir Panjang districts which forms part of Queenstown subzone.

Here's more from Savills:

Taking a step back to the broader Queenstown Planning Area, as of 1Q2014, the amount of private sector provided office space is substantial. Unbeknownst to many, if one includes Business Park space, which in this area is heavily centered in cleaner R&D activities, the amount of floor space is almost equal to the amount of office space of Raffles Place, Clifford Pier, Tanjong Pagar and Maxwell sub-zones added together.

The amount of office and business park space provided for has significant implications on the leasing demand for residential housing. For areas like one-north, this is perhaps even more critical as it houses a high concentration of biotechnology researchers which imply a greater number of overseas nationals in such workplaces.

By looking at just 3 of the larger developments in the Queenstown sub-zones, we have come to realize that current and future leasing demand for private residential properties in the area is expected to be strong.

Without considering other office developments in the Queenstown Planning Area, just by tallying up the number of potential overseas nationals working in these 3 developments, when fully completed, we should expect some 39,000 overseas nationals who would demand residential accommodation. In fact, just by focusing on the one-north subzone which also includes the Metropolis office development, we should expect close to 32,000 overseas nationals in these work places. Given that their age groups are likely to be in the younger cohorts, the household size should be low. If that size is 2, then these three areas should create a potential rental demand for some 19,500 housing units.

As of 1Q2014, in the Queenstown Planning Area, the stock of private housing residential units is just 8,222. In the pipeline, there are some 26,958 units of non-landed private residential properties under construction in the Central Region and another 8,093 units in the West Region. For landed properties, there are 543 units under construction in the Central Region and another 216 units in the West Region. In total, the future supply coming from projects under construction in the Central and West Region is 35,810. Now one must remember that the Central and West Region covers much more area than just the Queenstown Planning Area. We are just being conservative here when computing the future supply.

Therefore, when one-north is fully developed, the potential leasing demand for private residential properties from just Metropolis, one-north and MBC would already constitute 44% of the current and future available stock. This is a very significant percentage.

Unlike many other subzones in Singapore, the concentration of overseas nationals in the one-north area is very heavy. For this 200 ha area, most of the scientists and professionals are likely to be young and inclined to take public transport. Therefore high quality residential developments located close to public transport nodes like adjacent to an MRT station and within 5-15 minutes to the Buona Vista and one-north MRT stations stand to capture many of these higher income overseas nationals.