In Singapore’s competitive property market, buyers often find themselves caught between their aspirations and crushing reality. Budget constraints often force…
Bournemouth Road is a long road in the Mountbatten area, considered by many to be the “prime” part of D15. It’s located between Mountbatten Road and Dunman Road and leads onto Tanjong Katong Road, where you’ll find some commercial shophouses. If you walk down Tanjong Katong Road, you’ll reach Tanjong Katong MRT (about a 10-15 minutes walk, depending on exactly which part of Bournemouth Road you start from.) Continue past the MRT and you’ll find yourself at East Coast Park (about 17 minutes away on foot.) Alternatively, cross Tanjong Katong Road and you’ll find the famous Tanjong Katong Girls’ School, so you can see the area has much to recommend. Join me as we explore the area!
A map to help you orientate yourself: as shown, Bournemouth Road begins at Broadrick Road, is bisected by Crescent Road, then ends at Haig Road. Along Haig Road, you can find one of the 2 famous hawker centres near Bournemouth Road, Haig Road Market. The other is Old Airport Road Food Centre. However, both are about 20 minutes+ away on foot, which some may find too far to walk in Singapore’s heat.Here’s what you see to the right of the Bournemouth – Tanjong Katong junction. (We’re looking towards Mountbatten Road, Tanjong Katong MRT, and East Coast Park here.)And this is what you see to the left. (We’re looking toward Dunman Road and the commercial shophouses here.)To the immediate right of Bournemouth Road is only Song Lang Garden Centre (in terms of commercial units.)The left has much more interesting units, starting with an Anytime Fitness Gym.There’s also a 7-11, if you’re desperate for groceries.And of course, the many eateries East Coast is famous for, ranging from Western to Indian. This noodle stall in Jing Jing Coffee Shop has apparently been around for quite a while. Besides food stalls, you can also find a clinic, vet, pet shop, spa etc in this row of shophouses.According to the Masterplan, the commercial units are here to stay, although they can be redeveloped into taller residential buildings with commercial units on the 1st storey.More commercial units along Tanjong Katong Road.There’s also a petrol station, SPC, where Swanage Road meets Tanjong Katong Road, making it easy for people with cars to refuel.There’s also a second petrol station, Caltex, across the street, so you can easily refuel whichever direction you’re driving back from.Tanjong Katong Girls’ School is so close, it’s right behind the Caltex petrol station.You also find more local food stores – I had breakfast at a fishball noodle stall which was not bad, and cafes on the Caltex side of the road (i.e. opposite Bournemouth Road.)
Now that we’ve explored the outside, let’s head onto Bournemouth Road!
Right next to the Garden Centre, we find a preschool, Kiddiwinkie Schoolhouse.A plot that has been completely demolished – you can see how sizeable the units here are from this piece of land! Having said that, you may have noticed from the Masterplan shown above that the houses closer to the commercial units tend to be the smaller ones, with the larger units located closer to Broadrick Road. (Bournemouth Road is located at a slight angle, so the units there are generally both longer, and wider.)Here are some of the units that are closer to Tanjong Katong.It’s a broken white line, so you can park on the street (when there is no double yellow line marking.) Note that the road isn’t very wide but cars can travel in both directions so it can feel a bit tight here.More houses – most can park at least 2 cars inside. (Some more, as we’ll see later.)As mentioned above, parking is allowed on one side (where there is no double yellow line.) There are more cars parked along the street here (as compared to the Broadrick Street end), probably because we’re closer to the commercial units, and because some of the houses here have less internal parking space due to their smaller sizes.There is a footpath so pedestrians don’t have to walk on the street, and the houses are mostly semi-Ds and detached houses.Quite a patriotic neighbourhood – I visited some time after National Day but quite a few houses still had their flags up.Once we pass the Crescent Road junction, the roads clear up considerably.Some road work was being done around the junction.Do you see what I mean about how the houses increase in size, and the roads clear up, as we go further away from the commercial shophouses on Tanjong Katong Road?If not, here’s more “proof.”Some plots are so large, I can’t tell whether they’re a group of cluster houses, or an extended family living together. (There were several units like the one we see above.) I’ve zoomed out a bit to give you a better idea of the size of the land.And of the size of the individual houses on the land. (According to Google, this is Sayang Villa, a freehold detached housing development completed in 2000, but it doesn’t give much more information than that.)Here’s a similar set-up across the street: located at 70 Bournemouth Road, it’s somewhat confusingly named Bournemouth Eight. (Probably because it’s a cluster development with 8 houses.)
According to PropertyGuru, this complex was completed in 1997. At the time of writing, there was 1 unit for rent at $15,000, with the last sale here transacted in 2018, at $4.9 million. (There were no units for sale at Bournemouth Eight at the time of writing, but note that it may be one of the lower entry (price) points into Bournemouth Road, as the houses listed for sale along Bournemouth Road at the time of writing started from $9 million+.)
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Sales records for Bournemouth Eight from the Edgeprop website: Something I found interesting is that the (last) sale in 2018 was transacted at not much higher than the new sales prices in 1995.A few newer houses along the street (part of the Katong charm) compared to Bukit Timah, for example, is that it has a lot of older houses, but we’ve really only seen one or two vintage units here, with a larger presence of new builds.We then reach the end of Bournemouth Road, where it meets Broadrick Road.Looking down one end of Broadrick Road – nice and empty.And now down the other end. As shown, the houses here are even bigger than the ones we just passed on Bournemouth!
Now that we’ve finished our tour of the area, how did you find Bournemouth Road? Are you a fan of living in East Singapore or West? 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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