Not far away from Teachers’ Housing Estate and Sembawang Hills Estate is another of the “cheapest freehold landed” enclaves in Singapore, Thomson Garden Estate, where there are about 480-500 houses depending on which property portal you visit – you can see that District 20 is an area you can’t overlook if you’re looking to enter the freehold landed market, as it contains 2 of the Top 5 “cheapest” freehold estates in Singapore. (Teacher’s Housing Estate, whilst in the vicinity, falls under D26, and not D20.)
Thomson Garden Estate consists of the following streets:
- Jalan Minggu
- Jalan Isnin
- Jalan Chempah
- Jalan Pintau
- Jalan Hari Raya (I like the name of this street!)
- Jalan Kuak
- Jalan Chegah
- Jalan Rabu
- Jalan Khamis
As I drove over to visit Thomson Garden Estate, the first thing that struck me was how active the estate is. As I usually visit the landed estates in the early morning, they’re typically quite quiet – I might see a few people out and about exercising but that’s all. Thomson Garden Estate, in contrast, was a veritable hotbed of activity even at 7 am on a Tuesday morning.
Turning in off the main road, I immediately encountered 2 people leisurely walking in the middle of the road (to be fair, there is no pedestrian path so they had nowhere else to walk but on the road). However, given that the road is rather narrow and has sharp turns, I suspect I am not the only driver who would rather not have to deal with pedestrians walking in the middle of the road.
Note that if you drive, there appears to be only 1 way into the Estate, which is turning off Sin Ming Road and into Jalan Minggu. (I wouldn’t stake my life on this being the only car entry point, but I did check Google Maps and couldn’t see another road in). For pedestrian access, however, the estate is remarkably well-connected and many of the roads in the Estate have their own entry/exit points onto the surrounding main roads. If this is true, it could get rather crowded during peak hours – even if only 1/2 the residents in the estate have a car, that would be about 240-250 cars squeezing in/ out on the narrow streets. It’s not very ideal.
As we drove further in, we passed several cars and even lorries – I counted at least 10 vehicles out and about?
Another thing I noticed about the estate is that the residents seem inordinately fond of Christmas: I passed several houses which had Christmas hats hanging on their gates. After the 4th or 5th such house (I think I spotted at least 12 Santa hats on my journey )I cottoned on to the fact that this couldn’t just be a coincidence. Either 1 of the neighbours or the local CC/ MP/ what-not must be a very friendly person who has gifted a Santa hat to every house in the hood! A suspicion supported by the fact that 1 of the hats was still in its packaging with a note attached – I guess the residents of that house went away for the holidays? (If you live there, do let us know in the comments if I was right.) Either way, it’s always nice to live somewhere there’s community spirit.
Whilst Thomson Garden Estate is very lively in person (lots of Santa hats, people, and cars out and about), its online presence is the opposite: I ran Google searches on the area and on every street in the Estate, but only found 2-3 relevant search results. I guess no news is good news?
Like Teachers’ Housing Estate and Sembawang Hills Estate, Thomson Garden Estate is a mix of old and new houses. However, it feels very different from Teachers’ Housing Estate and Sembawang Hills Estate despite them all being located in the same area. For the latter 2, you pretty much don’t see any high-rise buildings around, as even the surrounding condos tend to be mostly low-rise (for now, at least- I understand some of the plots around Teachers’ Housing Estate have a plot ratio of 2.1 so it seems high-rise developments would be moving into the neighbourhood soon.) However, from almost every street of Thomson Garden, you can see a building towering in front of you, whether it be an HDB block or condo (Jadescape, estimated TOP 2023).
Another point of contrast is that, whilst all 3 areas have new houses which are taller than their older neighbours, the houses at Thomson Garden Estate seem particularly tall and looming. (For landed houses, there is no plot ratio, as they go by Planning Restrictions and controls instead – some areas allow you to build 2 stories + attic, others 3 stories + attic, etc – I’m not qualified to advise on this, so you’d need to confirm with your contractor or architect that you can indeed build higher than normal at Thomson Garden.)
Landed markets are thinner and less transparent than condo markets. Good comparables can be difficult to find, and an enclave often behaves very differently from another just a few streets away.
That’s where a second opinion can be valuable: benchmarking a specific property against comparable transactions, understanding what you’re really paying for, and weighing whether it makes sense for your own plans.
Over time, that’s also why we decided to work with agents who shared the same data-driven and advisory-led approach behind our editorial, consultants who could help readers think through decisions more objectively, rather than simply push transactions.
Today, the team has worked with more than 2,000 clients across over $5B in property transactions.
Accessibility
As with all the Thomson landed enclaves, it’s an easy drive from town, but the main point for which Thomson Garden Estate stands out is its easy MRT access. (Most landed estates aren’t really situated for convenient public transport access.) There are 2 MRTs near Thomson Garden Estate, 1 of which (Upper Thomson MRT) is a 5-15 minute walk away, depending on which exact street you live on. The other station is Marymount MRT, about a 12-15 minutes walk away.
Properties for sale, at the time of writing
There are a couple of houses for sale, 2 of which are under $3million:
- a 883 sq ft (land size, 1,400 sq ft if looking at built-up area) 2-storey inter-terrace on Jalan Chegar for $2.5 million.
- A terrace with a land size of 1,250 sq ft (built up is 947 sq ft and I highly suspect anyone who buys this will want to rebuild) for $2.088 million
There are also some larger and more expensive properties for sale, such as the $6.5 million behemoth below (still under construction), but as this series is on the “cheapest freehold landed properties in Singapore”, they’re not quite the focus here!
As a point of comparison, similarly-sized HDB terrace houses in Jalan Bahagia/ Stirling Road, which are about halfway through their leases (so 40-50 years left), are going for about $800,000-$900-000(ish), so the price difference is about 2-2.5x. (If you want to find out more about HDB terrace houses, I briefly considered them at the beginning of my house hunt but am now very glad I passed on them – you should see the flooding/ponding photos at some units at Jalan Bahagia!)
Amenities
Within the estate itself, there are no shops- although 1 of the houses had an “RWD Math Expert” sign up so maybe there’s a tutor within the estate? But once you walk to the main road, you can find commercial spaces galore, including:
- A kopitiam across the road
- A ballet school
- A place at which you can get the fastest wax
If you can’t find what you want here, Thomson Plaza is a 15 minutes stroll away, and since they have an NTUC and even a DAISO, I’d be surprised if you can’t find what you need (referring to basic necessities only, of course!)
Join me next week as I head to the last estate on the list of the 5 cheapest freehold landed areas in Singapore: Opera Estate.
Unlike condos, there are very few true like-for-like comparisons in the landed market. Every purchase is effectively a judgement call based on imperfect comparables.
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