In Singapore’s competitive property market, buyers often find themselves caught between their aspirations and crushing reality. Budget constraints often force…
Today, we’re back in the East again for our landed estate exploration. This time at Fowlie Road.
It’s been raining almost every day, so it was a little tricky to find a day clear enough to do one of these landed enclave walkabouts. You may be wondering what my logistical difficulties have to do with this series about landed houses – well, given how much rain we’ve had lately, one of the things I was concerned about was obviously flooding.
According to this NLB article, at least part of Fowlie Road is low lying. The nearby Onan Road was prone to flash floods in the past, but there have been less of these today compared to the ’70s. You can find out about heavy rain warnings here. I did a Google News search for “Fowlie Road flooding” but no recent news came up.
Before we start our wanderings, let’s take a look at the map of the area.
As you can see from the map, this is a part of Singapore we’ve been to a few times: see my earlier mention of Onan Road for the link to our Onan Road landed estate tour. Fowlie Road runs parallel to East Coast Road and connects Joo Chiat Road and a linear green park.
I really like its proximity to the green space. There is also a “shortcut” to Tanjong Katong Primary School which is only about a five minute walk away.
The streets in this neighbourhood are laid out in a grid pattern and most of the streets generally follow a north-south orientation. But Fowlie Road is among a handful in this estate that follow a somewhat West-East orientation.
The layout of this neighbourhood certainly emphasises the area’s charm and low-density landed enclave lifestyle, characteristic of most of the landed estates in the East and East Coast areas.
Let me show you what I mean!
Here we are at the junction between Fowlie Road and Onan Road. As you can see, not all the houses open on to Fowlie Road. Some of the houses here are actually the sides of the houses on Onan Road where the entrances are, making Fowlie Road feel a bit less residential. Initially, I wasn’t even sure if there were any houses that opened directly on to Fowlie Road, but there were.Here’s the side of the house I mentioned before.On the right side of the street are houses that front the road, where the front gate opens on to Fowlie Road. The open space, which is part of the site comprising Toong chai Presbyterian Church, across the street gives the area a more open feel despite the houses being terrace houses. Also, note the single white line on the road which means no street parking here.Looking down Fowlie street towards Tanjong Katong Primary School here.There is a pavement on both sides of the street but they’re quite narrow.An older house next to a rebuilt one so you can see how much higher you can go here.The open field I mentioned earlier. It really makes Fowlie Road so much more pleasant to live on.Walking past the open field/ church.Surprised to see more than one single storey house here as most homes here have been redeveloped.Yup, I remembered correctly. The open field is part of a church.Front view of the single storey houses. If you bought them, would you keep them as is or redevelop it?More vintage landmarks here. I’m guessing this used to be a community signboard. It looks a bit small to be a bus stop.Some people don’t like staying close to places of worship due to potential noise spillover during service. Here are the service times so you can check the noise levels out for yourself. Note that there is more than one place of worship here- there is also a temple slightly further down, to the left, and then another church, slightly further down, to the right.As you can see, the houses here don’t have the largest car porches.Fowlie Road connects to Carpmael Road here.The street across from Carpmael Road, which also bisects Fowlie Road, is a dead end.At the end of that street, there are more houses. I guess this would be the most private part of Fowlie Road.Still in the cul-de-sac. Could be quite cool to live here! There should be very little through traffic too.Heading back out to Fowlie Road.Admiring the vintage structure the church is housed in.Continuing down Fowlie Road.These houses are slightly bigger than the ones we passed earlier, which makes sense as they look like semi-detached units vs the terraces we passed before.Behind the houses on Fowlie Road is East Coast Road and what looks to be a boutique condo- possibly Ceylon Crest?Passing some construction work.Besides the construction project is a small side alley.It seems like this part of Fowlie Road is mostly semi-Ds, whilst the part closer to Joo Chiat Road has terrace houses.Here, Fowlie Road meets Ceylon Road. If you turn left here, Ceylon Road takes you all the way out of the landed enclave on to East Coast Road. Along the way you pass the temple I mentioned earlier.
On East Coast Road, you find lots of shophouse restaurants and more, and a little down the way, you’ll find The Odeon Katong shopping mall, Katong Square, and i12 Katong shopping mall. It makes this part of the East cute but also practical, with lots of amenities in the malls such as a supermarket, parking, and clinic in i12 Katong.Walk a bit more and you reach Marshall Road which connects East Coast Road and Pennefather and Dunman Road.Love the colorful walls here.Another massive construction project, this time on Marshall Road.Sneak peak down both sides of Marshall Road.We’re now at the very end of Fowlie Road.There are houses on both sides of the street and then, at the end, Fowlie Road adjoins on to a linear green park with Tanjong Katong Primary School behind.The houses on the other side of the street.It may not be obvious in the photos but on one side of the street, there are more semi-detached units and, on the other, there are more terrace units.A closer look at the semi-Ds, as they looked like terrace houses in the previous photo.There is no single white line here but there are double yellow lines on both sides of the street so still no street parking. Generally street parking is in limited supply in this estate though there are a few legal URA lots over at Pennefather Road.Here is the connection to the linear park. You get quite a few linear parks in the East. Some cars were parked in front of the park here as it’s quite a generous space.As you can see, the linear park is very narrow and you can see the property behind it. I believe it s the school.There’s a few pieces of outdoor exercise equipment here, which means that members of the public might gather here at all times of the day (or night) (i.e. potential noise.) I believe this gate leads to Tanjong Katong Primary School so you can see how convenient it is for students of said school who live on Fowlie Road.Looking down both sides of the linear park. It was more crowded than the estate. I saw more people here than walking around the landed enclave.Standing on the linear park and looking back at Fowlie Road.A photo to show you the distance from the last house on Fowlie Road to the linear park. They’re quite close to each other.
Table: Compiled by EdgeProp Singapore based on URA caveats.
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Ryan J. Ong ·
15 Sep 2024 ·
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Now that we’ve seen the whole estate, let me know what you think in the comments!
But before we go, here are the last transacted prices. We can see that the most recent sale on Fowlie Road involved a terrace house that sat on a 1,744 sq ft plot, which fetched $4.44 million ($2,546 psf) when it was sold on Aug 22 this year. Based on caveat data, it seems that sales of semi-detached houses are less common, with only one sale in the last 13 years!
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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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