A 5-Room Flat in Tiong Bahru View Was Just Sold for a Record $1.648M — Here’s Why Prices There Keep Rising

The sale of a five-room flat at Tiong Bahru. Tiong Bahru View has set a record price of $1.648 million ($1,367 psf) for a five-room resale flat in Bukit Merah when the unit was sold last week. The Improved-type flat is 1,206 sq ft and sits between the 25th and 27th floor at Block 9A Boon Tiong Road.

This beats the previous record for a five-room resale flat in Bukit Merah, which was set at the neighbouring Block 9B Boon Tiong Road. That 1,206 sq ft unit sat considerably higher, between the 34th and 36th floor, and changed hands for $1.588 million ($1,317 psf) in June 2024.

Tiong Bahru View has recorded a steady stream of high-value resale transactions since flats there cleared their Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) from 2020. The HDB development has a mix of three- to five-room flats.

Tiong Bahru View was developed under the Selective En-bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) as replacement housing for the former blocks at 110, 111, 113, and 114 Bukit Merah View.

Residents displaced by SERS are allocated replacement flats in a new development, typically nearby, on a fresh 99-year lease, which is why the blocks here have a 2016 lease commencement despite being in a mature estate.

Recent transactions in Tiong Bahru View

At Block 9A, five-room deals in the past year have ranged from $1.26 million ($1,045 psf) for a unit between the first and third floor that was sold in April 2025, to $1.58 million ($1,310 psf) for a unit between the 31st and 33rd floor that transacted in September 2025, excluding the record sale.

Other flats that sit between the same 25th and 27th floor range as the record-making flat previously sold for $1.53 million ($1,267 psf) in August 2025.

At Block 9B, other recent five-room transactions include $1.57 million ($1,300 psf) for a 19th- to 21st-floor unit in July 2025, and $1.44 million ($1,192 psf) for a unit between the 10th and 12th floor in May 2025. 

The two remaining blocks in the estate, 10A and 10B, comprise three- and four-room flats. Four-room flats at Block 10A, measuring around 990 sq ft, have fetched up to $1.24 million ($1,253 psf), while the four-room flats at Block 10B, which are slightly smaller at about 936 sq ft, have reached $1.23 million ($1,314 psf).

On the other hand, three-room flats in the estate have fetched prices of up to $910,000.

How it compares to the older Boon Tiong Arcadia

Tiong Bahru View, which is on Boon Tiong Road in District 3, is next to an older HDB estate named Boon Tiong Arcadia.

The HDB blocks at Boon Tiong Arcadia have leases that commenced in 2001 and 2005, roughly 10 to 15 years earlier than Tiong Bahru View’s 2016 start. Despite the shorter remaining leases, five-room flats in Boon Tiong Arcadia have continued to transact well above the million-dollar mark.

The highest five-room transaction recorded in Boon Tiong Arcadia to date is $1.38 million ($1,111 psf) for a unit between the 16th and 18th floor, in November 2025. Other five-room deals in the estate closed in the $1.20 million to $1.35 million range across several blocks and floors.

Based on transaction data, the price gap between the two HDB developments is, in large part, a result of the remaining lease. A buyer purchasing a five-room flat at Tiong Bahru View today is able to own a unit with 88 to 89 years left on its lease, compared to 74 to 79 years at Boon Tiong Arcadia.

For buyers banking on an eventual resale, that difference in lease tenure is a meaningful factor.

A SERS Estate With City-Fringe Access

Both Tiong Bahru View and Boon Tiong Arcadia benefit from the same locational attributes: their blocks are close to Tiong Bahru and Havelock MRT stations, and both stations are one stop from Outram Park MRT station, an interchange for the East-West, North-East, and Thomson-East Coast Lines.

Tiong Bahru Plaza, which houses a supermarket and a range of food and beverage options, is also a short walk away.

Five-room flats in city-fringe locations have attracted consistent demand in the resale market, in part because larger flat types in more central estates are rarely offered through the Build-To-Order (BTO) programme. HDB has broadly shifted its BTO pipeline towards smaller flat types in recent years, with four-room units making up the majority of new supply in most launches.

Five-room flats, where they do appear, tend to be concentrated in non-mature towns further from the city centre. This means that buyers seeking a large flat with good transport links and a reasonably long remaining lease have few alternatives outside the resale market.

This has kept demand for estates like Tiong Bahru View relatively steady, even as overall HDB resale volumes fluctuate. With limited new supply entering the resale pool, transactions at developments like Tiong Bahru View are likely to remain closely watched.