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Touring Kovan Landed Homes: Affordably Priced From $1.7m, Well-Connected And Bustling
Published 23 Oct 2022 |
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11min read
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BY TJPublished 23 Oct 20228 comments | 11min read
BY TJ
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
While I’ve toured quite a fair number of landed estates in Singapore, Kovan has eluded my radar so far. And so when a reader asked about it, it only made sense for me to put it down as my next stop!
First things first, the landed houses in Kovan span a huge area, so let’s define what we’re looking at. Namely, the area between Yio Chu Kang Road, Sirat Road, Palm Grove Avenue, Flower Road and Upper Serangoon Road. You may notice that the area we are touring today isn’t as rectangular as the landed enclaves we usually visit: that’s because there are many short dead-end roads in this area and many of the roads don’t run parallel to each other.
My overwhelming first impression of the area is: “Gosh, this area is busy!” If you’re looking for a peaceful, quiet enclave, you may need to continue looking. I’ve never toured a landed estate where I ran into so many people walking or driving through the estate as Kovan! I think this is partly because of how well-connected the estate is. For example, from Upper Serangoon Road, you can turn into Hillside Drive and drive all the way up to Yio Chu Kang Road (and onwards again to Serangoon Gardens.)
Similarly, turn into Flower Roads off Upper Serangoon, drive onto Glasgow Road, then Rosyth Road and you reach Yio Chu Kang Road too. (This is in comparison to other landed estates where there is only one vehicular entrance and exit, so you can’t enter the landed estate to get to another main road, keeping the area more private.) The plus side is that it’s very convenient to drive to many places from this area!
This is the junction of Kovan Road and Flower Road inside the estate.If I turn right, i.e. towards the MRT, this is what I see. This is the first time I’ve seen such a big road within a landed estate! (The road parallel to Kovan Road, Upper Serangoon Road, is much busier so I wouldn’t even consider this the “main” road of the estate!)
Having said that, the houses closer to Upper Serangoon Road (so along Kovan Road and Highland Road) were busier. They’re also much closer to Kovan MRT station, about a 10 to 15 minutes walk depending on the house number. It wasn’t as bustling deeper into the estate, so it may be a simple matter of choosing the right street to live on here, if you want a more tranquil location.
I can’t really show you photographic evidence of how busy the area is, as we try not to show people’s faces or car plates in the photos. This is probably the best “anonymous” shot. You can see 3 people in the distance and another 2 cars driving on the road. I ran into different passerbys every few minutes!
Due to all the hustle and bustle here, unlike the other estates I’ve toured, this area didn’t feel like a landed enclave. Instead, it felt like a group of landed properties that just happened to be situated next to each other, if that makes sense. I think it’s partly also because, besides landed houses, there are many other types of properties here too: condos, churches, schools, etc. (Other estates do have such non-residential properties too, but not in such large numbers as I saw here.)
There is, for example, a Catholic Education Centre. As well as a massive Catholic Kindergarten. St Pauls ChurchKovan Crest, one of many boutique condos along Kovan Road, with landed houses interspersed between them.Kovan Esquire, another boutique condo.One of the landed houses located next to Kovana, another boutique condo. I thought these 2 semi-Ds were pretty charming! There are several more small condos, but I’m going to refrain from spamming you!One of the cul-de-sacs along Flower Road face this high-rise condo, Kovan Melody. Unfortunately, I believe the condo’s playground is located along this side, as I visited this street twice (an hour apart), and both times I could hear the kids screaming pretty loudly. Cul-de-sacs like the one shown above are very common in this landed area.By the way, if I’ve given you the impression that this is quite a Catholic enclave, that’s not true. There’s also a mosque located along the junction of Upper Serangoon and Hillside Drive, Masjid Haji Yusoff. It’s the green building in the background of the photo.
The fenced gate on my left is a rather deserted building marked “The Eylim” so it doesn’t look residential. However, I couldn’t figure out whether the building was in use, nor its purpose, after Googling.
To the right of the photo is a row of shophouses.
Close-up so you can see how busy this junction gets, it’s much quieter along Yio Chu Kang Road. The building on the right of the photo (not captured) houses Greenland Vegetarian Restaurant. Next to it is Hillside Vet, Grapevine eatery and Bethesda Serangoon Church.Walk a little further down Upper Serangoon Road and you reach Hougang You Mu Kung Temple. According to a sign, this is the oldest temple in Singapore dedicated to the Nine Emperor Gods (and is gazetted as a National Monument.) It’s famous for the Nine Emperor Gods festival held in the 9th month of the lunar year, during which, a procession form the temple will makes its way to Sungei Serangoon.Sidetrack: as mentioned, Upper Serangoon is a well-used road!Across the road, there’s Gra Baking Academy, Hotel 81, a 7-11, another vegetarian restaurant (maybe because of the temple?) and Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre. On this side of the road, there’s Hanis Learning Centre. Kovan Spazio shown above has a few commercial units such as a Patisserie and a Wushu School.
If you’re looking for more mainstream shops, walking in the opposite direction along Upper Serangoon Road will take you to Kovan MRT, Kovan Heartland Mall, Kovan 209 Market and Food Centre etc. There’s a NTUC Finest, a Guardian, a DBS and basically all the conveniences and amenities you could need.
Turning the corner at Pat’s Schoolhouse brings us onto Yio Chu Kang Road .There we can find ICB shopping centre, which has a couple of shops, such as Active Game Collection, My Father’s Feet (4.8 stars on google for their massage) and Urban Table.
There are also a couple of pet-related shops next to ICB Shopping Centre at Vibes@Kovan. (Have you noticed how there are a lot of mixed-use boutique condos here?)
On the other side of Yio Chu Kang Road is Space@Kovan, a freehold apartment where you can find a long row of shops on the ground floor. These range from Soi19 Thai Wanton Mee, The Bread Rack, De Mini Art, GSH Clinic (4.6 stars on Google at the time of writing!), Wells Hair Salon and more, so it’s quite comprehensive.
The turning into Kovan Road is opposite Space@Kovan but if you walk along Yio Chu Kang road, you’ll find Serangoon Stadium. Let’s head in that direction before we head back into the landed estate!
That’s Serangoon Stadium. There’s also Serangoon ActiveSG Swimming Complex next to it, so your exercise needs are covered well. Opposite the Stadium on the same side of the road as the landed houses, is a bus stop and a row of commercial units. Only 1 bus stops here though (136.)
Along this row, there is Eleven Strands, a cool cafe, a Taekwondo Academy, a Baby Swimming School (the houses must be deceptively small!), a Cycling shop, a Pub and a Domino’s Pizza (had the WORST experience there.)
Behind me (or behind where I was standing to take this photo), is the turn-in to the landed estate (Sirat Road) and, behind Sirat Road is a petrol station (SPC.)
Across from SPC, on Sirat Road itself, are more shophouses but this time mostly of auto shops, so quite a niche audience! To the left of the above photo (not captured) is Song Kee Fishball, which I quite like, as well as a cycling studio etc.
Across this part of Yio Chu Kang Road is another bus stop, which I presume also only serves 1 bus. Houses along this part of the estate also have 2 MRT stations to choose from: Serangoon MRT (about a 15 minutes’ walk away- that’s where you find the large mall, Nex) and Kovan MRT (about 20 minutes’ walk.)
Because of how quiet Yio Chu Kang Road is, I was pretty surprised by how well-linked the houses here are!
Last look at Yio Chu Kang Road, before we turn back to the houses. As you can see, it’s significantly quieter than Upper Serangoon!Walking into Sirat Road then looking back out at SPC Petrol station, this is what I see. Note how close some of the houses are to SPC! Interestingly, Sirat Road appears to be a mix of both freehold and 999-years leasehold properties.Here’s a sneak peek into the cul-de-sac located to the right of the previous photo.If you were wondering, no, I didn’t encounter any parking issues when touring Kovan. This is about as crowded as the streets got.There were quite a number of houses in the area being redeveloped, as well as several still in original 1-story condition (see left and right of the House For Sale above.)Some houses reminded me of the HDB terrace houses at Jalan Bahagia, where there there appears to be no car porch attached to the house. The street outside has a dotted white line, so I believe it’s possible to park there.This is what the parking situation looks like. As mentioned, Kovan has a lot of non-residential properties situated throughout the area, such as this Nanyang Neo Clan Association Building.And this large Montessori Campus, there are parallel parking street lots right outside.And a Children’s Home.Some of the houses located on the same street as Montessori, the Clan Association and the Children’s Home.
Something to note is that the landed houses in this part of Kovan range from large detached ones (as seen above), to semi-Ds (some larger than the detached houses I’ve seen!) and smaller terraces.
Example of some of the smaller terraces. Generally the terrace houses here were very tall, 3 to 4 stories’ high, but this row was only 2-story.There appears to be a neighbourhood Halloween party (but ticketed, so you have to pay to attend.) Photo of the huge semi-D I mentioned previously, these are larger than some detached homes that I’ve visited!As mentioned, parking was pretty easy here relative to other landed estates. (Several roads have double yellow lines, so you can’t park along them FYI.) However, it does have the honour of being the first ever I’ve visited to use chairs to “chope” parking spaces, instead of the ubiquitous bins. Another interesting thing about the houses here is that many rows of houses are separated by either a drain or an alley, and the houses that border the drain actually have backdoors opening onto the drain!Example of dead-end alley in between houses.Some of the houses also don’t have any pavement in front of them – they open directly onto the road! There are what look to be bus shelters within the landed area. However, they don’t seem to serve any buses! I’m not sure if buses used to enter the estate, or perhaps will enter the estate in future?
In terms of education, although the area is near Serangoon JC and Pei Can Secondary, it is not really near many Primary Schools. Depending on where your house is located along Flower Road, you just may scrape by the 1 km rule for Xinghua Primary. Alternatively, if you live along Sirat Place, you’ll be within 1 km of Zhonghua Primary.
Now that we’ve finished our walkabout, how did you find the area?
Before we go, I’ve saved the best for last, so to speak. Though I believe a property should be a home first and foremost, not an asset, alas, the economic reality of living in Singapore means that we sometimes have to compromise on our ideals and consider the economics behind our housing decisions!
Looking at the URA Map of the area, there aren’t that many reserved plots of land around this part of Kovan, so the supply of residential homes would be relatively limited going forward, and may potentially serve as a pricing support. (I saw limited as compared to say Windsor Park which had a large tract of undeveloped land around it that was zoned residential or Springside which was literally surrounded by large plots of reserve land when we visited.)
I see only 4 yellow zones in the URA Map that are near to the landed enclave. (Yellow = reserve plot FYI.)Moreover, if you look at this zoomed-in version of the URA Masterplan, you’ll note that many plots of land that the landed houses sit on are zoned 1.4, which means that if your house is large enough (or if you can form a collective with your neighbors), and if there are no special restrictions, you could potentially re-sell it to a condo developer going forward at a higher profit. (Note the zoning is 1.4 which means you can build up to 5 stories only.) This is probably why I saw so many boutique condos in the area!
Anyway, that brings us to the end of today’s tour. Let me know where else you’d like covered in the comments!
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
Can review older freehold condo like Nouvelle park and Kensington park, scared of lease decay
Rae
2 years ago
When I saw hillside, I thought you were gonna make a comment on to infamous police murder case.
Also feel cheated by your click bait title when nothing much was written :/
AHMAD AZIMULLAH
2 years ago
We are looking to buy the leasehold property at Kovan around S$1.7m as you mentioned in your article.
Please advise if property still available. Thank you.
Vincent
2 years ago
Your walk-about is at the wrong or worse side of landed cluster of Kovan. It is quite messy at the North Kovan area.
You should go to Charlton Park area at the south where the true landed enclaves are. Many parks and freehold lands starting from $3mil onwards.
Can review older freehold condo like Nouvelle park and Kensington park, scared of lease decay
When I saw hillside, I thought you were gonna make a comment on to infamous police murder case.
Also feel cheated by your click bait title when nothing much was written :/
We are looking to buy the leasehold property at Kovan around S$1.7m as you mentioned in your article.
Please advise if property still available. Thank you.
Your walk-about is at the wrong or worse side of landed cluster of Kovan. It is quite messy at the North Kovan area.
You should go to Charlton Park area at the south where the true landed enclaves are. Many parks and freehold lands starting from $3mil onwards.