High Park Residences vs Parc Botannia: A Data-Driven Look At Mega vs Mid-Sized Condo Performance

In recent years, mega-developments, with over a thousand units, sprawling facilities, and lower entry prices, have surged in popularity. But do they really offer better investment returns?

To find out, we compared High Park Residences (1,390 units, completed in 2019) with its nearby counterpart Parc Botannia (735 units, completed in 2022). Both are leasehold projects in the same Fernvale area, share similar locational advantages, and are only two years apart in age, making them ideal for isolating the effect of scale.

A quick rundown on High Park Residences and Parc Botannia

High Park Residences is the mega-development in this study. It’s a leasehold, 1,390-unit condo at 27 Fernvale Road. This is just a few minutes walk from Parc Botannia at 10 Fernvale Street. Parc Botannia is also a leasehold condo, but with just 735 units.

These two projects are suitable for our case study because:

• They are so close that the locational advantages and drawbacks are virtually similar
• High Park Residences and Parc Botannia are close in age; Parc Botannia is about two years younger, but this shouldn’t distort the perspectives too much, although we have to note that earlier launches would also mean a lower entry price 
• At 735 units, Parc Botannia is neither too big nor too small to provide a fair point of comparison. 

Let’s start with a general snapshot of High Park and Parc Botannia’s performance:

*High Park Residences saw a dip between 2017 to 2018 because of wider market reasons (the implementation of further cooling measures,) so this does place it at a slight disadvantage. However, we have chosen to start the comparison in 2017 because skipping a whole year would simply result in another distortion – this is unfortunately, another case where perfect points of comparison, as always, don’t exist in the property market. 

On the surface, High Park seems to outperform Parc Botannia. But this is too general: its stronger gains may just be due to its two-year lead. We might even argue that High Park launched during a market lull (just prior to the 2017 rebound), whereas Parc Botannia launched later into a recovering market, thus resulting in less upside potential.

To be more discerning, let’s look at unit sizes and transaction types

We’ll examine the average gains and holding period, based on the different unit sizes and layouts. We will also begin by looking at new to subsale/resale transactions:

High Park Residences

Parc Botannia

Here’s a summary of the gains from the above:

Now we can start to be a bit more certain regarding our conclusions. High Park Residences managed to outperform Parc Botannia in both absolute gains and annualised returns, over every unit type.

For one and two-bedders, average absolute gains between the two condos aren’t drastically different: a difference of about +$23,734 for High Park Residences one-bedders, and +$33,379 for High Park Residences two-bedders. 

But annualised gains tell a different story, as the one-bedders are up by 1.71 per cent, whilst the two-bedders are up around 0.53 per cent only. So for one-bedders, we’d say High Park Residences outperformed significantly, even if dollar gains seem close.

For two-bedders the difference narrows, suggesting that two-bedders perform quite similarly across both projects, once market maturity sets in (although High Park Residences does still edge out a win).

As unit size increases, High Park Residences begins to pull away more clearly from Parc Botannia; not just in raw dollar gains, but in compounding returns: 

• A difference of 1.03 per cent for three-bedders
• 1.63 per cent for four-bedders
• 1.7 per cent for five-bedders

Speculatively, we wonder if larger units have more appeal because of buyer demographics. It’s possible that family upgraders (who need the larger units) are more inclined toward a mega-dev’s larger range of facilities.

Next, we will examine subsale and resale-to-resale transactions

High Park Residences

Parc Botannia

High Park Residences continues to outperform Parc Botannia, even when we isolate only sub sale and resale-to-resale transactions. The significance of this is that sub sale and resale-to-resale can be stronger indicators of post-launch price momentum (i.e., we’re getting a view of how the condos perform, minus the aid of early-bird developer discounts). 

The data mirrors earlier findings: despite the smaller absolute price tag, High Park’s one-bedders deliver higher returns, and sooner. For High Park Residences’ four-bedders, we still see that larger units deliver better results.

Overall, this is congruent with earlier findings: the smaller units at High Park Residences outperform Parc Botannia more in terms of annualised returns than absolute profits (usually a sign of sharper short-term appreciation). 

For larger units, both the dollar gains and annualised returns widen significantly; so that may underscore how mega-developments offer stronger long-term upside for family-sized units. 

Other possible factors contributing to High Park Residences’ better performance

One of the factors could be due to the sheer land area, which is a key advantage of mega-developments in general. High Park Residences is around 34,018 sqm., whilst Parc Botannia is at 21,129 sqm.

High Park Residences spans a significantly larger land area, with better overall spacing. It even has segmentation of facilities, into their own respective themed zones (e.g., Stages of Adventure, Romance, and Joy). These zones provide certain facilities that we can’t find in many condos, such as trampolines, movie theatre spaces, and multiple themed gardens. There are even water lounges, a Japanese spa, and even a Tarzan Swing and Dirt & Float Slide.

Parc Botannia, while well-utilised, is more compact in its layout. As cleverly concentrated as the facilities are, there’s a limit to how spacious it can get. We’re not saying Parc Botannia has bad facilities mind you, only that it’s more confined to the usual suite of pools, gym, BBQ pits, hence. Like many regular condos, its facilities aren’t as lavish as a huge mega-dev.

As an aside, High Park Residences has two tennis courts (usually the most overbooked of the facilities), whereas Parc Botannia has only one. But this may be balanced out by High Park’s bigger population! 

Related to the more lavish facilities, High Park Residences has another advantage common to mega-developments:

Maintenance fees (approximate):

Here, we can see that High Park Residences has more extensive facilities, whilst also having lower maintenance fees. This is due to the maintenance cost being split between more households (High Park’s 1,390 units versus Parc Botannia’s 735).

By now, we have a clearer picture of why High Park may be more alluring to family buyers. 

Now let’s look at average resale prices, since it’s often the first thing buyers researching the area will check 

Average unit sizes (sqft) for units sold in 2024

Average $PSF in 2024

This might explain why High Park Residences draws so much more attention. Despite being six minutes’ walk from Parc Botannia, High Park Residences units are generally about 8.5 per cent cheaper. That’s a huge saving when you’re dealing with something on the scale of home prices.

Note that High Park Residences’ units have a lower average price psf (except for one-bedders) but also smaller unit sizes on average. This may also work in its favour since the size reduction seems tolerable, whilst significantly lowering the quantum.

But what about the argument of excessive competition?

This is where things get complicated, as it’s tough to study this phenomenon in detail. A common criticism of mega-developments is that, because there are so many units in one project, you face intense competition when looking for tenants or buyers. 

So far, the best response to that seems to be what we’ve shown above: High Park Residences units have outperformed Parc Botannia, despite that criticism. But we can go one step further to analyse this, and that’s to look at how much “excessive competition” there really is.

No. of resale transactions in recent years

This is a snapshot of total listings for High Park Residences and Parc Botannia, on a major property portal. We’ve also looked at the volume of resale transactions in recent years, to see the extent of the competition.

Although High Park Residences has nearly double the listings in raw numbers, it’s only marginally higher in proportion to its total unit count. In fact, just a 0.29 percentage point difference. This suggests that listing pressure (i.e., the proportion of units in a development that are actively listed for sale at any given time) is comparable to Parc Botannia anyway.

Also, Parc Botannia actually saw a higher turnover rate than High Park in 2024, despite being a smaller project. This challenges the assumption that mega-devs necessarily suffer from oversaturation.

So, despite its size, High Park Residences does not appear to suffer from resale overcrowding. Its active listing rate is only marginally higher than Parc Botannia’s, and in 2024, Parc Botannia actually had a higher proportion of units competing for resale. 

In short: High Park emerged as a clean outperformer, with its mega-development features possibly playing a decisive role.

But knowing this is just one part of the puzzle.

At Stacked, we’ve helped hundreds of clients cut through the noise — using data like this to filter out projects that only look good on paper, and identify those with real long-term value.

If you’re currently shortlisting condos or trying to time your exit, let’s talk about how this framework can be applied to your specific situation.

Next: Can Mega-Developments Perform in Mature Estates?

In our next analysis, we’ll be breaking down Affinity at Serangoon to see if a mega-development can outperform in a mature zone like Serangoon. We’ll also reveal performance differences by unit layout and key advantages or drawbacks, so this will help you if you’re also considering buying or selling at the project. 

If you’d like to get in touch for a more in-depth consultation, you can do so here.