We Analysed 2-Bedroom Condos In Pasir Ris: Here’s The Strongest Performer

For some Singaporeans, Pasir Ris might feel like one of the most ‘ulu’ towns in Singapore. For those who have never lived there, the area might seem little more than chalets and the beach.

But Pasir Ris has transformed significantly over the years, and the housing market there is growing by leaps and bounds. From Downtown East to the new Pasir Ris Mall, it has gained an impression as one of Singapore’s most ideal family-centric towns in the East.

Pasir Ris has seen an influx of younger families and couples, who have moved in as upgrades and infrastructure improvements are completed. This renewed buying interest has drawn the attention to a category of condo units that never enjoyed the limelight before: namely, the two-bedroom segment.

This unit type is seeing renewed interest as the availability of larger two-bedders among resale condos grows and the overall affordability of these units.

In this article, one of several in our ongoing series of top-performing two-bedders, we’re going to see which projects in Pasir Ris took centre stage when it comes to its two-bedroom units, and unpack the reasons behind its strong performance.

To identify the strongest performer, we analysed the profitability of two-bedders across Pasir Ris over the past 10 years.

We focused on subsale and resale transactions, avoiding new launch projects due to the influence of developer pricing. We’ve also excluded projects with fewer than five profitable transactions, to prevent outliers from skewing the average. 

In a break from our other analysis in this series, there isn’t a single breakthrough winner in Pasir Ris. Estella Gardens and Carissa Park top our rankings, but they only just make the cut based on their record of six and seven profitable transactions, respectively.

The gap in absolute gains isn’t that wide either. Among the top three projects, average profits range from around $261,000 to $298,000. 

We would single out Ripple Bay as the stronger performer. The development comes close compared to Estella Gardens and Carissa Park in terms of ROI and capital gains, and it also has a healthy volume (28 units) of resale transactions.

Ripple Bay has also been consistent in terms of its resale record. Over the past decade, it recorded just two unprofitable two-bedroom transactions which resulted in breakeven sales, with average losses of just $556 or 0.07%. 

Having identified Ripple Bay as the strongest performer, the next question is straightforward – What helped it outperform its peers?

We first examine its launch prices, which often offer the straightforward explanation that a project which launched at a substantially lower price compared to its neighbours typically sees more room for resale prices to appreciate.

So, let’s look at the launch prices at Ripple Bay to see how it compared against its neighbours.

Overall, the data compiled by Stacked suggests that Ripple Bay was competitively priced when it launched for sale. But it’s not what we would classify as a significant discount.

At $880 psf, it launched below Sea Esta ($911 psf), Hedges Park ($907 psf), The Palette ($927 psf), and Seastrand ($970 psf). However, it still wasn’t the cheapest option either. Parc Olympia launched at $895 psf, Palm Isles at $884 psf, and there were older resale condos selling at even lower prices.

An interesting observation that we’ve made is that Ripple Bay offered some of the largest-sized two-bedroom units among the condos in the vicinity. At an average of 802 sq ft, its two-bedders are noticeably larger than the same types at Sea Esta (760 sq ft) and Parc Olympia (759 sq ft), while still remaining competitively priced.

This tells us that Buyers weren’t simply getting a lower entry price, they were also getting more space for their buck. Coincidentally, this was the motive for a buyer who recently purchased a unit at Ripple Bay, which we also featured in this recent case study.

However, we wouldn’t pin Ripple Bay’s success down to it being relatively underpriced when it first entered the market. It launched at roughly where it should have been, relative to surrounding options.

Is it the condo’s location that gives it an advantage?

If certain locational advantages are present among the stronger-performing projects (or conversely, absent among the weaker performers), it may provide some clues as to whether location plays a role. Let’s take a look:

From the perspective of proximity to an MRT station, no clear advantage seems obvious. Some of the best-performing projects, such as Estella Gardens, Carissa Park, and Loyang Valley, are in the Loyang/Floral Drive enclave – quite far from any MRT station. Conversely, several projects within walking distance of Pasir Ris MRT (EWL) generated more modest returns.

That said, we did see another pattern. Many of the stronger-performing developments are clustered in either the Pasir Ris Grove enclave or around Pasir Ris Drive 3, near Downtown East. Projects such as Ripple Bay, Coco Palms, Sea Horizon, Seastrand, NV Residences, D’Nest, and The Palette can be found in these areas.

This is likely because Downtown East is a major hub for retail, dining, and family recreation. It would appear that in Pasir Ris, being closer to Downtown East might be a stronger advantage than being near the train station.

This was the only consistently clear pattern and we saw no other clear-cut advantages that stem from proximity to schools in the area.

This leads us to conclude that proximity to Downtown East does contribute to Ripple Bay’s success, although this isn’t the only reason. Sea Horizon, Seastrand, and Coco Palms are also near Downtown East, but they don’t register equally strong returns.

Let’s take a closer view of Ripple Bay to see if there’s something special about this project’s two-bedders.

Broadly speaking, the two-bedroom units at Ripple Bay don’t appear to have any overwhelming physical advantage over its competitors. Its smallest two-bedder size of 764 sq ft is respectable, but projects such as Livia (883 sq ft), Seastrand (883 sq ft), Ferraria Park (883 sq ft), and The Gale (904 sq ft), offer substantially larger two-bedders.

Nor is Ripple Bay a particularly low-density residential project. With 679 units on a 27,055 sqm site, it works out to around 40 sqm of land area per unit, placing it among the more built up developments by comparison. 

For us, what stands out is Ripple Bay’s balance of size and price: it’s not too large to make the quantum unaffordable, at the same time it offers units that are larger than its newer neighbours. 

Ripple Bay’s two-bedders are larger than Coco Palms (743 sq ft), NV Residences (743 sq ft), The Palette (721 sq ft), and D’Nest (753 sq ft). At the same time, it entered the market at an average price of around $700,000, making it one of the more affordable options when it is compared to these newer developments.

As the overall size of three- and four-bedroom units has shrunk in recent years, and rising private home prices resulted in a decrease in overall affordability, that balance became increasingly appealing to buyers.

Thus, the two-bedders at Ripple Bay occupy a sweet spot: large enough for small families, and affordable enough to meet the budgets of most upgraders.

We should also compare the floor plan of a typically two-bedder at Ripple Bay to nearby alternatives to see if it stands out.

We’ll compare Ripple Bay’s two-bedder to both Sea Esta, its closest neighbour.

The 764 sq ft layout is Ripple Bay’s smallest two-bedder, while the 818 sq ft unit reviewed here is among the larger two-bedroom layouts at Sea Esta.