New Flats Are Coming to Clementi — a Town Where Resale Hits $927k

If you've never wandered into Sunset Way, picture the opposite of a new launch. Low walk-up blocks, an old-fashioned row of shops, mature rain trees arching over the road, and — right at the edge — a band of secondary forest that locals have long treated as their backyard.

It's one of those pockets that feels a little hidden, a little slower than the rest of Clementi. People don't tend to land here by accident; they choose it, often for years, precisely because it's quiet and green.

Which is exactly why the news landed the way it did. When a place is loved for being unchanged, any plan to change it is never just about buildings.

The plan is straightforward on paper. HDB has identified the Sunset Way site for public housing, and the former Gillman Barracks nearby for a mix of public and private homes. Between them, according to the reporting, analysts estimate the two sites could eventually yield up to around 18,000 new homes.

That is a large number for a small, settled place. To put it in perspective, 18,000 homes is on the order of a whole new town's worth of households arriving over time, threaded into and beside a neighbourhood that has felt finished for decades.

For a city that always needs more housing, it's a sensible use of land close to town and an MRT line. For the people who live there, it's the moment a familiar view stopped being guaranteed.

The part that made headlines wasn't the flat count — it was the trees. Residents rallied to protect the greenery around the Sunset Way site, part of what's known locally as Maju Forest, and the concern reached an engagement session attended by residents and their MPs.

HDB's response, as CNA reported, was notably open-handed. Its chief town planner said the housing plan for the Sunset Way site is "not final," that the homes would be "designed around nature" after environmental studies, and that HDB hopes to keep working with residents. The proposal, as reported, would retain about 8 hectares of the area to help wildlife move through; on the Gillman Barracks side, more than 20 of its heritage buildings and much of the secondary forest and a forest stream would be kept.

It's a genuinely delicate balance, and reasonable people will land in different places on it. But underneath the greenery debate sits a second, quieter fact — one that's easy to miss and worth stating plainly: of all the places in Singapore to add HDB flats, this is one of the most expensive ones. So we pulled the resale numbers to show just how expensive.

We compared the median 4-room resale price across towns, like-for-like, for the latest half-year. Clementi sits near the very top:

At $927k, Clementi is the 3rd-priciest of the 23 towns with enough 4-room resales to compare — trailing only Queenstown ($1.05M) and Toa Payoh ($1.02M). Set that against the national median of $628k, and a four-room in Clementi carries roughly a $300k premium over the typical Singapore town. At the other end, the most affordable town, Jurong East, sits at just $530k.

One honest caveat before anyone over-reads it: only 15 four-room flats changed hands in Clementi this half-year, so that median rests on a thin sample and can wobble. It's a marker of how dear the town is, not a precise valuation of any one block.

Here's why this plan is interesting beyond the trees. Mature, central-ish towns like Clementi rarely get large tranches of brand-new flats, because the land is mostly built out. When new supply does appear, it's a rare door into a location that otherwise only opens at resale prices like the ones above.

So for a household that wants to live in this part of the island, a future launch here could be one of the few ways in at a subsidised price rather than a $900k-plus resale ticket. That scarcity usually means keen demand — and, given how central and pricey the area is, it wouldn't be surprising if some of the new flats carried the tighter resale conditions HDB now attaches to its most desirable locations (the Prime and Plus framework, with longer minimum-occupation periods and a subsidy clawback on resale). That's our read, not a confirmed detail — the classification hasn't been announced.

For people who already own a resale flat nearby, 18,000 eventual homes is a lot of future supply. But it arrives over many years, if it arrives as sketched at all — so it's a slow-moving factor, not a reason to expect prices to lurch either way soon.

Honestly: not for a long while, and not on any date you can circle yet. As reported, the concept is at an early stage — environmental studies were only recently released to inform the planning, HDB has called the Sunset Way plan "not final," and consultation with residents is still going on.

No Build-To-Order launch, completion window or unit count has been officially committed. Read this as a direction of travel for the area, not a diary date — the kind of thing to watch, not to plan your next twelve months around.

It's tempting to hold out for a subsidised flat in a town you love. But building a housing decision on supply that is unconfirmed, unpriced and years off is a fragile plan — especially if your life needs a home sooner than that.

The steadier approach: if you need to move now, weigh what's genuinely on the market today, resale medians and all. If you can wait, and you'd qualify, keep an eye on the eventual launch and — crucially — its resale conditions, because Prime/Plus terms change the maths. Either way, model your own sums against your own timeline. This is opinion and context, not advice, and the flat that fits your life beats the one that fits the headline.

PropKaki tracks the full HDB resale record, so we can compare median prices across towns and flat types and refresh them as new resales lodge. The figures here are median 4-room resale prices by town for the latest half-year (2026 H2) — 4-room only, so towns compare like-for-like rather than by their mix of flat sizes.

Two caveats we carry rather than bury: a town median is a dated snapshot that moves with the specific flats that sold — Clementi's rests on just 15 transactions — and prices are gross, before any resale levy, agent commission or legal fees. The 18,000-home figure and the 'not final' status come from the reporting, not from our data; we've attributed them as such. Want the medians for your own town and flat type? You can ask PropKaki for them.

• HDB resale transaction records (median resale prices by town and flat type), analysed by PropKaki.
• CNA — Sunset Way housing plans 'not final'; HDB open to feedback (original reporting; the ~18,000-home estimate is attributed by analysts, and the plans are not final).
• HDB — Prime Location Public Housing (Prime and Plus flats)

This is editorial analysis by the PropKaki Editorial Desk, written for general information only — it is opinion and context, not a valuation, financial advice or a recommendation. The Sunset Way and Gillman Barracks plans, the ~18,000-home estimate and the 'not final' status are drawn from published reporting; the resale figures are from HDB records. Plans, prices, timelines and flat classifications can all change — always verify against official sources (HDB) before acting.