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Touring Jalan Senang: Attainable Freehold Landed Homes From $3 Million (But Near Industrial Area).
Published 19 Mar 2023 |
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11min read
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BY TJPublished 19 Mar 20230 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
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A while back, we toured Jalan Kembangan and some of its surrounding areas, but I guess readers just love the East, as the requests for landed tours of the area kept coming in! So today, we’re off to Jalan Senang for a visit. Although this landed estate is located just across the road (well 2 roads really) from Frankel and to the East of Jalan Kembangan, it feels very different from both areas. In fact, the first thing that came up when I Googled was an industrial listing!
That said, at least when you first enter the area off Sims Avenue East, it feels quite residential.
Walking down Jalan Senang, with Sims Avenue East (and Frankel) behind me.
As you can see, the road is broad and spacious. Despite the fact that it is a dotted white line road (i.e. allows people to park along the streets), they don’t feel cluttered and it’s very easy to drive or walk through. I think this is because the houses along this road are all rather spacious.
A rather palatial house that Iines Jalan Senang.Another property. It’s not as built up as it appears to be older (i.e. plot ratio not maximised) but you can see that it occupies quite a good sized land.More of the same – the road is so broad I can barely get the houses in the frame! Also, note that these are 2 car lanes heading in the same direction and not opposite directions!If you’re thinking “Detached houses. Article wasting my time. Cannot afford.” Don’t worry, there are terrace units in the area too.Having said that, the corner unit looks as big as a detached house! Just look at how much space there is around that one lonesome car. No wonder the streets are relatively empty, the residents have more than enough parking space at home!Some of the units have been rebuilt and look to be twice as big as the original, so it is possible to have even more space!If your budget can’t extend to redeveloping, there is a variety of housing styles available. (Again with a long driveway for many cars, although some may feel that it’s a waste of space. (Especially if you only have one car, or none!)Oh, detached house for sale, for those with the $$.This is as crowded as the road ever got.We reach the second road which bisects Jalan Senang, Jalan Krian, and see a massive renovation project. I was wondering if it’s a commercial building or something given how big the building works look but, nope, according to the Master Plan, this part of Jalan Senang is all residential.Looking down Jln Krian.And this is what Jalan Krian looks like if we look down the left side.Besides terrace and detached units, we also get semi-Ds here.Some are very impressive in size. You might even be able to split these into 2 detached houses, but you’ll need to confirm the plot size first. (In case the house is just wide but not deep, so the land size doesn’t hit the minimum required to detach the units.)Some heavy vehicles do traverse this road.A few steps down from Jalan Krian is a footpath. The right brings you to Yong Seng estate and Jalan Paras, where a nightclub, Club Paras, is apparently located according to Google (but temporarily closed.) The footpath on the left is much more scenic. It is a shortcut to Jalan Selamat and Taman Kembangan.There is a small shelter in front of the footpath. (Not for buses – no public buses enter this part of the estate.)We pass some cleverly constructed houses. The room that juts out gets a lot of light even though it’s a terrace house. (But some people may call it a waste of space, since the area above the car porch is now non-usable space. Personally, I would have turned the area above the car porch into a balcony, so the room still gets light, but we get some extra square footage. It’s also nicer to have an elevated (balcony) garden than to sit at road level, I feel.)We then reach some shophouses. I’m usually a fan of shophouses in landed estates but the ones here weren’t terribly exciting/useful. There were a few pet stores, a gym, and a small provision shop.My favourite was the coffee house at the end. Boon Kee Kway Teow (since 1976), which has 4.4 stars out of 148 Google reviews.
I wanted to try it but it was pretty busy for 8 am on a weekday morning and I decided I didn’t feel like queueing and squeezing. Work and the walkabout first!
Another small footpath across the road, at the start of the shophouses. This footpath leads back to the previous one we saw (so it will eventually bring you to Taman Kembangan and Jalan Selamat.)Yet another row of terraced houses across from the shophouses.
When I first drove in, I thought the area consisted mainly of big detached houses but actually, as we go deeper in, there are more terraces. (I can’t help but notice that the “cheaper” terrace units are closer to the industrial bit and the PIE. Having said that, I didn’t hear the PIE at all and didn’t even know we were near it till I came back and was looking at the Master Plan for this article.
If you wanted to take a look at it, here you go. The light purple area is zoned for business use (light and clean industry) but with a plot ratio of 2.0. Currently, they’re all low-rise buildings but you could technically get tall commercial buildings next to you in the future, in the absence of further restrictions.After the shophouses are Jalan Paras, where we find more terrace units (and the nightclub, according to Google.)Right after the Kway Teow shop is the start of the industrial area. If you head down this road, you find more houses.
That’s “Singapore Distillery” on the left. I was rather excited as I didn’t know one existed! According to Google, unique Singapore blends of Gin, and established in 2019. Apparently, residents are quite happy with it (or at least one resident is) as she even left it a 5-star review extolling its presence “right outside my doorstep.” It would have been fun to be able to do a tour or create my own gin but the website doesn’t indicate any such services.
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It was a bit difficult to walk around this stretch due to the presence of parked lorries etc, which I presume belong to the businesses here.Since I can’t get a tour, I decided to peek inside instead. Behind this is the Bedok campus of the Land Transport Authority but the land is zoned residential with a plot ratio of 2.8.Just behind the distillery, across the road, are more houses. Both this road and Jalan Paras connect Jalan Senang to Jalan Selamat on the left/to the West. It is somewhat confusing, as the main road that connects to Sims Ave East is Jalan Senang, as are 4 parallel off-shot roads here. The industrial buildings are on the right, residential on the left. I’m not quite sure how I feel about living so close to industrial areas. Would you be happy to pay full price for such properties or would you expect them to be priced at a discount compared to the surrounding area?
On the minus side, it feels like it could be quite messy during the day (with lots of vehicles driving in and out of the area to transport goods and whatnot.) On the bright side, the area should be very peaceful in the evenings as half your neighbours will be gone! What do you think?
Showing you yet another photo of the industrial area so you can decide for yourself. This industrial area on the right is connected to Chai Chee Lane so actually maybe the industrial vehicles won’t have to drive through Jalan Senang.Senang Crescent to the right is a loop road that loops back onto Jalan Senang but also connects to Chai Chee Lane, where there’s a huge Lock and Store facility, so if your landed house isn’t big enough, you have convenient storage nearby.
OK, that’s the last of the industrial area photos.
More terrace houses again. Have you noticed how the majority of units we’ve seen at Jalan Senang are all in original 2-story condition?This is one of the Jalan Senang off-roads that connects to Jalan Selamat, which is very convenient for residents, as there is a huge interim park located there. (An interim park but the area is zoned as Park so, whatever happens, it should remain a green space.) Oh, sorry I have to break my promise. Had to share this photo of an umbrella factory because how cool is that? I didn’t know we still made umbrellas in Singapore!! (#supportlocal)As we reach the end of Jalan Senang, we see some taller buildings in the distance. (Commercial buildings.)We start seeing more gardening efforts now which makes the area feel a bit more residential.
It’s also the end of the industrial zone as both sides of the street are now residential (instead of residential on one side and industrial on the other.) Having said that, the residential houses form one row only and then it’s zoned civic and community institutions behind followed by industrial buildings again.
Maybe this is a better example of gardening!
The high-rise condo behind is Vacant East I believe. I’m guessing that’s why I don’t hear the traffic noise from the PIE. (Luckily for residents, it’s blocked by the high-rise.)
Photo to illustrate how close the industrial buildings are to the residential.I follow the road to the end.We start seeing some bigger units again. I’m actually quite impressed by how much space this property has to “waste” (the very sizeable driveway. Great for privacy though!)At the end of Jalan Senang, we find Jalan Senang playground (sandwiched between the landed houses and the condo which has 400+ units.)As the photo shows, it’s a decent-sized playground though not as big as the park at Jalan Selamat.Photo from within the playground to show you the distance to the houses around it.I then walked over to the interim park at Jalan Selamat so you can see how big it is before walking back to Sims Avenue East.I mentioned the footpath in front of the shophouses earlier, but didn’t show you a detailed photo so now let’s wander down and see where it leads.Some seats for you to rest if the walk tires you out. Or just a spot to sit if you want to get outside of your house (or workplace, in this context.)
And this is where it leads, bringing us to the end of today’s tour.
As you can see, Jalan Senang is quite well-connected for pedestrian access, with many streets and footpaths connecting to the surrounding roads. In terms of vehicular access, it is also very convenient as you can drive in from 3 areas: Siglap (or Sims Avenue East, where we started our tour), the Bedok central region, and Eunos.
For public transport, it’s about a 5 to 12 minutes walk to Kembangan MRT, which is on the East-West line. Kembangan is an above-ground line, which can be a little noisy. However, the houses at Jalan Senang are far away enough that they do not hear the MRT announcements. (I have a friend who stays near Tanah Merah MRT and wakes up to their announcements at 5 am every morning!) As for bus stops, there is one just a few stops away from where Jalan Senang meets Sims Avenue East, which serves Buses 2, 2A, 7, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 33, 42, 67, and 854.
Unfortunately, the area is a little lacking when it comes to groceries. According to yoursingaporemap.com the closest wet market is more than 1.2 km away and the closest supermarket/ NTUC is about 0.7 km away. (The same is true for shopping centres. The closest is Kembangan Plaza but it’s, well, in the words of the Google reviews ‘“so quiet”, “dead”, and “small sad building that looks neglected” so don’t expect too much! It’s mostly gyms and TCM rather than shops.
There are, however, 3 Primary schools within 1 km of some of the houses in the estate – namely, St Stephen’s, Opera, and East Coast Primary.
Having finished our tour of Jalan Senang, how did you find the area? Let me know 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
