This article appeared in City & Country, the property pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 820, Aug 23-29, 2010
The main Balestier Road has retained some of its charm with the presence of the Tua Peck Kong temple, Balestier Market and Food Centre, shophouses selling lighting fixtures and other home fittings, as well as popular eateries such as the famous tau sar piah shop, the Founder Bak Kut Teh Restaurant, the bak chor mee stall and Boon Tong Kee chicken rice restaurant. The greatest transformation, however, is happening on the side …

You would not have missed this ‘Gaudi’ roof design when you drive past the Novena area along the CTE. This eye catching roof with distinctive onion shaped domes belongs to the white apartment along Keng Lee Road called Haniffa.

You are able to see Muslim motiff cladding around the white apartment. This 12 storey building is owned by a Muslim family with 3 generations living under the same roof. Businessman Mohamed Haniffa, 70, spent $9 million in constructing the apartment block to house his family of 15 and five household helpers.

I …

There is a high rental demand for expatriates with family near to United Square area, such as development along Khiang Guan Ave, Surrey Rd & Lincoln area. Other than the state of art of residential developments mushrooming in the area, the magnet of the area is the amenities and convenience one is able to enjoy in the area. One of the main attractions is the United Square Shopping centre, which has become the destination mall for many families.

United Square Shopping Mall is one of my favourite shopping mall. This place …

Cont’d from Part 1
Pricing
Soleil was first launched in Aug 2007, just before Singapore market being hit by US subprime crisis. The average pricing of the transaction was reported as $1500 psf.  As for today, there are still unsold units from developers launching at higher pricing.  
2 bedroom unit of 936 sf                   = from $1.6 mil (from $1709 psf)
2 bedroom Loft of 1464 sf                = from $1.94 mil  (from $1325 psf, for 344 sf as void area)
4 bedroom unit of 1722 sf                = from $2.6 mil (from $1510 psf)
We are …

Soleil, a French word for ‘sun’, is designed as a shining light to illuminate a new approach to lifestyle. I thought this is a pretty beautiful and cool name given for a development.  This development comes with 2 iconic residential towers with exciting curvy cladding to the elegant built form.

Soleil @ Sinaran is located along Sinaran Drive in the Novena area.  Frasers Centrepoint is the developer. They were awarded of the piece of land through the Government Land Sales (GLS)  from URA for the top bidder in 2006. It is …

If you are hankering for a place in or near to city but daunted by the high prices, a home buyer or investor may want to consider Minbu or Mandalay areas. Though it is very near to Balestier, yet it is still within the district 11 and within the walking distance to Novena MRT Station. Since it is at the fringe of Balestier area, it is very close to good food and amenities.  More importantly, the property prices are much more attractive in comparison to the properties in Newton and Novena …

Parkway Hospital is setting itself as a premium world first class hospital with its soon completed Parkway Novena Hospital. In the recent soft launch, all 100 suites released ranged between 452 square feet and 1,431 sq ft and were priced between $3.588 psf and $3,828 psf, excluding GST, were sold out.
This may sound a good price that Parkway has managed to launch at: just imagine selling a medical suite with a price tag from $1.63 mil to $5.1 mil, not forget to mention it is sitting on a 99 years …

Novena is fast setting itself as a distinctive medical cluster in Singapore with a number of leading medical institutions already located in the area. These include the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (Singapore’s second largest hospital), Thomson Medical Centre and specialist centres such as the Johns Hopkins International Medical Centre, Novena Medical Centre, National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), National Skin Centre (NSC) and the Renci Hospital.

The latest up and coming one is the Parkway Novena medical hospital, which is planned to be a world first class hospital with only A class single …

Balestier is sandwiched in between of the 2 ‘prime areas’ of Novena and Toa Payoh. I start to have this crazy bold idea why we are not able to have a MRT station in the middle of the 2 MRT station. Underground construction wise if not a problem if this is well planned. And it would not cause much hassle to the Balestier area since the construction site will be much more localized in the MRT station area.

Zhong Shan Park as Balestier MRT station
And I am think the current Zhong …

Sometimes I love to see things in retrospect. I was browsing through the old articles on property section, and found this commentary article dated 18 Nov 2007 on the over spill effect of Newton to Balestier and Thomson 3 years back. True enough, the property prices of Balestier have risen substantially coming close to the Novena and Newton area. So is the over spill effect of current Balestier able to work on Boon Keng, St Michael area and Potong Pasir? If you are looking to ride along the wave of …