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The prices of Woodlands HDB flats as a whole increased at an astounding pace in the couple of years. A 5-room resale flat located at 100m from the MRT was sold at $290,000/- in early 2006. In mid 2008, a similar 5-room unit that required at least 20 minutes walk to an MRT Station is fetching in between $350k to $390k. Given that a 5-room unit closer to town is almost doubled in pricing at $650K, the pricing of HDB resale market in Woodlands is not likely to go anywhere but upwards. Of all the HDB New Towns, Woodlands is probably the most underrated.
The Past
I remembered when I first visited Woodlands in 1990 with my classmates to do a detailed study on one of Singapore’s HDB housing estates. My team was “unfortunately” allocated Woodlands. It was a common notion then that Woodlands, with its way out location in the north, was the most “ulu”, the last backwater in Singapore. Given that it took me almost 2 hours to travel by bus from Ang Mo Kio to Woodlands, I didn’t expect the Town to be as tensely populated as maybe, Toa Payoh or Queenstown, nor as developed.
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I was wrong. What we didn’t expect to come face to face with was a ghost town with blocks of unoccupied flats that appeared unearthly and surreal. HDB has tried to attract takers to them by remodeling some of these into bigger units, popularly known as “granny flats” with little success. Woodlands continued to be ignored by many Singaporeans until mid 90s. The 90s saw Woodlands transforming from a backwater into one of the three major Regional Centres in Singapore, a planning concept earmarked by URA.
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A Regional Centre in Woodlands
The other RCs are Jurong East and Tampines, Tampines RC was the first to set the trail blazing with massive developments of business complexes, civil buildings and shopping malls in the mid 90s. The demand of newfound suburban living in Tampines drove property prices there to rocket high with records of transacted prices of executive HDB units fetching over $600k. It was an astonishing sum as many of these executive units were originally sold at 1/6 of this price direct from HDB. The successes of Tampines and consequently, the stagnant property market there have driven many to reassess the potentials of other RCs. Woodlands benefited from this and the opening of the three MRT stations; Marsiling, Woodlands and Admiralty in late 1990s. With the Government relentless effort in urban planning, Woodlands was the next in line to flourish, housing many facilities that are unique to RC:
- a regional library second in size only to the central library
- a polytechnic, a junior college, the American International School
- the only sport school in Singapore
- SATA Medical Centre
- CPF Branch Office
- 24-hours supermarkets like “Prime” and “Shop and Save”
- Causeway Point, the largest suburban shopping mall with 250 retail outlets over 7 floors.
The Thomson Line in 2018
The best has yet to come as the new Thomson Line is to be completed in 2018, ten years from now. The TL will have at least 3 stations running through Woodlands. At the northern end, the station is expected to stop at the edge of the Republic Polytechnic. The Interchange Station located next to the current Woodlands Station will be the next. From here it will continue south and probably have the next stop near the Junior College or the Sport School next to it. Properties in the vicinity of MRT Stations are the most sought after, the new stations actual locations when announced will have inevitable impacts on property prices.
Read more about the Thomson Line in Woodlands.
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Location Analysis 