District 20 Recorded Six New Private Home Sales in a Year. Then Seven Developers Bid for 140 More

The tender closed on 15 September. The site is not large: 46,106 square feet, 99-year leasehold, in the Rest of Central Region, with room for about 140 private homes.

Seven developers wanted it. As The Straits Times reported:

Property consultants polled by The Business Times had expected four to 12 bids, with a top bid between $1,400 and $1,600 psf ppr. The top bid landed just above that range, and about 11 per cent above second place.

It also tops the recent run of land sales in the same region. A Berlayar Drive site went for $1,515 psf ppr in August, and a Kallang Close plot for $1,415 in April.

One name on the list will be familiar if you followed this month's other tender. Intrepid Investments and TID Residential also finished second at the Canberra Drive EC site, which drew a record bid on 1 October. They have now come second twice in a month.

The analysts quoted in the coverage listed the attractions, and they are real.

Transport. Bright Hill station on the Thomson-East Coast line is a short walk away, and it will become an interchange with the Cross Island Line when that opens in 2030.

Schools. Ai Tong School is directly opposite the plot. PropNex's Wong Siew Ying noted that Ang Mo Kio Primary, Catholic High and CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' School are within 1 to 2km.

Green space. CBRE's Tricia Song pointed to Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, Lower Peirce Reservoir Park, Windsor Nature Park and MacRitchie Reservoir, plus the Singapore Island Country Club nearby.

There were cautions too. Huttons Asia's Mark Yip noted that a project this small may not get construction economies of scale or full condo facilities. Mogul.sg's Nicholas Mak pointed out that the site is about 550 metres from the Bright Hill Columbarium and Crematorium, which some buyers may be put off by.

ERA's Marcus Chu summed up the developer's view: the site "offers developers an opportunity to enter an established neighbourhood with a relatively small capital commitment".

This is the number that explains the bidding. The site is in District 20 (Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Thomson). Over the past year, URA caveat records show:

All private homes, including landed. One new-sale caveat per unit.

Six new sales in twelve months. Three were at Artisan 8, a 34-unit freehold boutique project on Sin Ming Road that did most of its selling at its launch in August 2025, just before our window. The other three were single caveats recorded under a landed estate or with no project name, which in our records usually means landed homes.

For comparison, District 20 had 531 resales in the same period. The district is not short of buyers. It is short of new homes to sell them.

That is the gap that Wong of PropNex was describing when she said the coming Thomson Reserve would "likely get first dibs on the pent-up demand for private housing in that area". It is also why a 140-home site drew seven bids.

Here are the most useful reference points from our records for the past year.

The district. Non-landed private homes in District 20 sold at a median $1,991 per square foot across 410 sales, for a median price of $2.00 million.

The busiest projects:

The neighbour. Thomson Grand, a 339-unit, 99-year condo on Sin Ming Walk completed in 2015, is the closest like-for-like comparison. Its 19 resales went at a median $1,819 per square foot, or $2.57 million for a median 1,367 sq ft home.

The district's range is wide. Braddell View, the ageing former HUDC estate now attempting an en bloc sale, traded at a median $1,055. Newer projects like Amo Residence traded at $2,520.

This is the comparison we have now made for several suburban land sales, and it keeps producing the same result.

The land: about $1,612 per square foot of permitted gross floor area.

The neighbour: Thomson Grand, built in 2015, resold at a median $1,819 per square foot of strata area.

The two are not the same measure. A land price is per square foot of gross floor area, which includes common areas. A resale price is per square foot of strata area, the space the owner holds. You cannot subtract one from the other.

But the closeness is still striking. Before any construction, financing, marketing or profit, the land alone costs close to what an 11-year-old condo nearby sells for, all in. Everything a buyer of the new project pays will sit on top of that.

We found something similar in Bedok last month, where the land cost more than the district's typical resale home. In two suburban land sales in a row, the land price has come close to the price of existing homes nearby. New launches are priced well above both.

Nobody knows, and the project has a long way to go. What we can show is what buyers in the area have recently paid for new homes.

Chuan Park, the 916-unit, 99-year project on Lorong Chuan (District 19), is the nearest large launch. On our records it has 891 new-sale caveats since its November 2024 launch, at a median $2,598 per square foot:

Realion's Justin Quek, quoted by The Straits Times, put Chuan Park's 2026 sales at an average $2,626 psf, and Artisan 8, the freehold boutique project on Sin Ming Road, at an average $2,388 across 22 of its 34 units.

Before this site launches, Thomson Reserve, the 1,268-unit project on the former Thomson View site near Upper Thomson station, is due to launch first. Its land cost $1,178 psf ppr in the November 2024 collective sale, well below this bid. Whatever Thomson Reserve sells at will become the next reference price for this site.

Some analysts think so. Newmark's Wong Shanting said land costs have risen significantly on the back of bullish bidding, and developers may have been "compelled to bid aggressively". That will push up new home prices in the area.

She also warned that "job market weakness and the possibility of higher interest rates in the short-to-medium term could dampen buyer appetite for units at benchmark pricing levels, risking a mismatch between pricing and demand when the project eventually launches".

The day after the tender closed, the US Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time since 2023. As we set out separately, Singapore's mortgage benchmark has barely moved since. But Wong's point is about the next few years, not the next few weeks.

The developer's case rests on the gap in the earlier table: six new sales in a year, against hundreds of resales. A small project in a district with almost no new supply can sell through quickly, even at a high price, as long as it is not competing with several larger launches at the same time. Thomson Reserve will be selling first, and selling a lot more homes.

Some limits worth stating.

The result was provisional when reported on 15 September. Awards usually follow the top bid but are not automatic.

Land psf ppr and strata psf are different measures. We set them side by side for scale only.

Six new sales is too few to price anything. We use the count to show how little new supply there has been, not to describe new-home prices in the district.

Thomson Grand's median rests on 19 resales, and Chuan Park is in the neighbouring District 19, not District 20.

Recent caveats under-lodge, so counts are a floor.

What we would not hedge on: developers are paying near-record land prices in this part of Singapore because buyers here have had almost no new homes to choose from.

Two kinds of numbers, kept apart.

From the reporting: the bids and bidders, the expected range, the site size and yield, the Berlayar Drive, Kallang Close and Thomson View land prices, the transport, school and park details, the columbarium distance, Thomson Reserve's size, the Artisan 8 and Chuan Park averages quoted by Realion, and every analyst comment come from The Straits Times (reporting by The Business Times), linked below. The Canberra Drive second place comes from our own earlier report on that tender.

PropKaki's own data, as of 6 October 2026:

• District 20 sales by type cover all URA private-sale caveats in postal district 20 over the trailing 365 days (569 priced sales, including landed), one new-sale caveat per unit. The non-landed median ($1,991 psf, 410 sales) excludes landed homes.
• Thomson Grand figures are its 19 URA caveats over the same period; its size, tenure and completion year come from our condo directory.
• Chuan Park figures are its 891 URA new-sale caveats from November 2024 to August 2026, banded by unit size.

The news:

• The Straits Times: Malaysian developer Eco World tops bids for Sin Ming area housing plot with $1,612 psf ppr bid, 15 September 2026, reported by The Business Times, with comment from Wong Shanting (Newmark), Marcus Chu (ERA), Wong Siew Ying (PropNex), Tricia Song (CBRE), Leonard Tay (Knight Frank), Mark Yip (Huttons Asia), Nicholas Mak (Mogul.sg) and Justin Quek (Realion).

The data:

• PropKaki analysis of URA private-sale caveats in postal district 20, trailing 365 days.
• PropKaki analysis of URA caveats for Thomson Grand and Chuan Park.

This is commentary by the PropKaki Editorial Desk on reporting by The Straits Times and The Business Times. The tender results and analyst views belong to that reporting; the District 20, Thomson Grand and Chuan Park analysis, the framing and the opinions are ours.

It is opinion and general information, not financial, legal or property advice, and not a forecast of any land award, launch price or launch date.

Published 6 October 2026.