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I first discovered these houses when visiting the Chui Huay Lim Club, which is located opposite the houses. (There are a few restaurants in the Club, so you’re not far from good food – there’s also Newton Food Centre 10 minutes away and Novena 15 minutes away, so I’d say the houses are pretty conveniently located.)
Landed markets are thinner and less transparent than condo markets. Good comparables can be difficult to find, and an enclave often behaves very differently from another just a few streets away.
That’s where a second opinion can be valuable: benchmarking a specific property against comparable transactions, understanding what you’re really paying for, and weighing whether it makes sense for your own plans.
Over time, that’s also why we decided to work with agents who shared the same data-driven and advisory-led approach behind our editorial, consultants who could help readers think through decisions more objectively, rather than simply push transactions.
Today, the team has worked with more than 2,000 clients across over $5B in property transactions.
I’m standing outside the houses, looking over to the Club. There is parking in the Club’s complex, but also designated street parking behind me.Several empty lots were available when I visited on a weekend, in the evening.The area comprises mostly tall apartments. If you walk through Lincoln Road (above left), you’ll eventually reach Goldhill Plaza and the Novena area, where you’ll find several malls and Novena MRT (It’s about 15 minutes walk away.) There’s also a pedestrian crossing over the canal so you don’t have to walk right to the end to cross the road.
Given how we’re standing in between two very busy roads (Newton Road and Bukit Timah Road) I was surprised by how quiet the area was!
Houses on the right. Some of the houses have actually been divided into walk-up apartments, though from the outside, they look very much like any other landed house (There were 2 for sale at the time of writing, starting from $2.08 million. The listings were quite interesting as one apparently did not have an attached bathroom? Not sure how that would work for living quarters!)In case you were wondering about the parking charges.As you can see, the houses are somewhat of an oddity in the area – there are just a few units, located in the middle of many towering buildings. I’d say fewer than 30 units at Jalan Aruan and around another 20 over at Makepeace Road. (There are also a couple of colonial buildings at nearby Hooper Road.)The area makes more sense once you look at the Master Plan – apparently the houses are sitting on land with a plot ratio of 2.1, which means they could POSSIBLY be developed into high-rise buildings. I say possibly, as there may be other restrictions in place. In addition, “going en-bloc” is not a straightforward process these days.Anyway, back to exploring the area: we pass some construction work on Kampong Java road.Turning into Jalan Aruan.As shown, the area is still extremely untouched, and none of the units on this stretch have taken advantage of the plot ratio to build higher.According to Edgeprop, there haven’t even been any sales in recent times.Given that the pavements are all above street level, I’m not sure the owners can park cars in their front porches (as there’s no level road for the cars to drive onto the porch.) Thankfully, street parking is allowed here.Head-on view to show you what I mean about the front porch and its inaccessibility to cars. At the end of that stretch of houses is a nice piece of open land.Squint and you’ll see that there are more units over on the other side,So let’s take a right here to see what lies that way. (You might already have noticed that some of the houses on that side are taller.)This brings us to Makepeace Road.Potential parking issues? My friend did say that the nearby Lincoln Road gets ridiculously crowded with parents waiting to pick up their kids.Do you find the houses here quite unique? That’s because they’re shophouses. (But the plot ratio is also 2.1, so something of an oxymoron.)According to the property listing, the 2-storey units can be rebuilt to 3.5 storeys.Some very interesting units here.I believe this one on the left is the house we saw behind the park (i.e. no neighbours) – and it’s huge!Photo to help you appreciate the size.And its lack of neighbours (on one side.)Can you see how much wider it is than the houses next to it?Unlike Jalan Aruan, you can park in your front porch here.The road ends in a junction with Bukit Timah Road – I drive along that road very regularly and it is almost always crowded, so I don’t envy residents trying to turn out!Heading over to take a look at the traffic.I might have to eat my words, because it looks very clear at the moment!Turning to look in the other direction.Well the road going the other way is pretty jammed so I wasn’t 100% wrong.There are a few commercial units here, but nothing terribly exciting. There’s a ballet academy, a music shop, a TCM place, a pet place, and a spa to name a few.
Now that we’ve seen the outside, let’s head back in again.
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Retracing our steps to Jalan Aruan.Let’s go take a look and see what’s hiding in this green field. There was some outdoor equipment.Old-school swing.Can you spot the Hooper Road colonial houses in the background?A small playground for the kids.The colonial bungalows.Is this a portable toilet?? (I didn’t want to chance the smell so didn’t open it to check.)On the left, there’s a 3rd row of houses.These look a little larger than the ones over at Jalan Aruan (where we started our tour.)Rare find: some are still single storey!Turn left and you’ll reach the junction with Thomson Road. There’s also the Central Expressway (shown in the photo too), so I was quite surprised that I couldn’t really hear the traffic.I’m going to turn left to return to our starting point.The estate is actually only 10 minutes walk from Newton Food Centre and Newton MRT. The path we’re on now will take us there.To the right, you can see the pedestrian crossing across the canal, which makes it easy to get to Keng Lee Road.Church over on Keng Lee road.Once we reach the condos, there’s a sheltered walkway to take you to the MRT.See where all the people are? That’s Newton already. Not too far a walk at all.Well the walkway ends at the traffic light, so it’s not 100% sheltered, but close enough.
Besides Newton and Novena MRT, some of the landed houses are also located within 1 km of ACS Junior, ACS Primary, SJI and St. Margaret’s. Note that this can vary depending on the unit number so always check the distance for the particular unit you’re looking at, if proximity to Primary schools is omitting that concerns you.
This brings us to the end of today’s tour. How did you find the area? Let me know in the comments!
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TJ's interest in property was sparked after returning from the UK- where balconies are not counted in one's square footage!- and finding that the Singapore property had totally changed in the 7 years she was away. When not reading and watching articles & videos about property, she is busy cooking and baking for friends, family & her blog Greedygirlgourmet
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