A look into Bidadari Estate’s Resale Condo – Part 1: Bartley Cluster
This is a 3-part series where we explore Bartley, Woodleigh and Potong Pasir Clusters to see if the private resale condos are worth considering.
Bidadari has been the most talked about new HDB BTO estate in the last couple of years, the first wave of residents had already started to settle into their homes this year. Many more are expected to move in over the next year, while Bidadari resident hopefuls will get their chance at the coming HDB sales balloting exercise later this year.
When Bidadari Estate is fully developed, a total of 10,000 HDB houses are expected to be completed. The new town will provide much needed vibrancy to the Bartley and Woodleigh vicinity.
In this article, we will explore how the new Bidadari HDB estate will affect the nearby private property clusters like Bartley, Woodleigh and Potong Pasir. Then, we will look some of the private property choices in these clusters and whether they are good buys.
A. What will the new Bidadari estate feature?
Bidadari Park
The new 10-hectare Bidadari Park is inspired by Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood. When fully completed in 2022, the park will feature a lake, a heritage walk, experiential trails and a play area for children.
HDB will be retaining 350 existing mature trees while planting an additional 2,000 new trees.
Residents will be able to explore experiential trails which spans 6km or a 80m-long boardwalk across the marshland.
Singapore’s First Underground Reservoir
The Bidadari estate will feature Singapore’s first underground reservoir which will store drinking water. A service reservoir tank will be built beneath the community lawn in Bidadari Park to optimize land use, creating more green spaces for residents.
Singapore’s First Underground Bus Interchange
Tucked away and hidden from street view, the new bidadari estate will be home to Singapore’s first underground air-conditioned bus interchange located at Woodleigh.
New Shopping Mall
A new estate will not be complete without a shopping mall, the new Woodleigh Mall, which will be built by SPH and Kajima will feature 300,000 sqft of retail spaces, roughly the size of Clementi Mall that is currently managed and owned by SPH REIT.
B. The Potential Effects of Bidadari Estate to the Surrounding Properties
Appeal to Nature / Greenery Lovers
There is no age limit when it comes to nature lovers. Younger property buyers increasingly prefer to live near green spaces or parks where they can easily access to for a run. Older property buyers would love a slow morning or evening stroll to clock steps for the day. In a post-covid world, we believe that proximity to green spaces will increasingly appeal to future home buyers.
Improve dining options
When HDB builds new flats, you can be assured that there will be food courts, supermarkets and other shops that come along with the development for the benefit and convenience of the residents. The food courts that will open soon after completion of the HDB Blocks will provide nearby private property residents more dining options.
Improve proximity to managed shopping malls
The close proximity to a good managed shopping mall can really help boost the vibrancy of a location. There is certainly a difference between staying at or near King Albert Park’s Mall where many of the retail shops are vacant as there is no central mall management, versus staying near a good mall like Clementi Mall managed by SPH or Bedok Mall managed by CapitaMalls.
The Woodleigh Mall, being built by SPH will likely be transferred to SPH REIT, which will make Woodleigh Mall a good managed shopping mall with good quality tenant mix.
Improve livability and desirability of the properties in the area
More dining options, shopping, a new park. The new bidadari estate will regenerate the entire Bartley, Woodleigh and Potong Pasir vicinity into a even more livable and desired estate to live at. Previously, there were little to no food options, or no vibrancy in the area, all this will change.
In a post covid world, proximity to green spaces is likely to be even more important as residents will want to exercise outdoors, to have a stroll around beautiful flora and fauna to wind down after a hard day of work. Bidadari Park will likely be a game changer for the housing demand in the area.
The Bidadari Wealth Effect
In addition to the Bidadari HDB estate giving more life and desirability to the private properties in the area. The fortunate HDB owners of Bidadari estate will likely experience an increase in wealth in the coming years to come. Most of the HDB sales launch for Bidadari have been up to 15 times oversubscribed. Just like an Initial Public Offering or IPO, the level of oversubscriptions shows the demand of the product. Therefore, we can expect a very healthy resale demand for Bidadari HDB flats once owners are eligible to sell their flat after the 5-year Minimum Occupation Period (MOP).
The 4-room HDB flats have been selling at around the $450,000 to $550,000 range. The expected resale price after 5-year MOP would be $700,000 to $850,000 in the future for the 4-room flats. Which could yield these HDB owners a generous profit of $250,000 to $300,000, or higher. (this is based on the current performance of prime HDB BTO properties after 5 year MOP)
When completed, the Bidadari estate will have close to 10,000 HDB flats and based on the number of households in Singapore living in private properties (~23%), we can expect that there will be between 2,000 to 3,000 Bidadari flat owners that will aspire to upgrade to private properties. Naturally, a good number of upgraders will consider private properties built in the vicinity.
C. A look into Bartley Cluster
The Bartley Property Cluster consists of private condominiums, landed properties and soon, HDB flats serviced by Bartley MRT (Circle Line) and various Bus options.
Residents in Bartley currently only have access to a coffee shop and mini mart along How Sun Road. In the near future, residents will have a food court and supermarket at Woodleigh Hillside (shown in image below) just to the left of Maris Stella High School.
In the November 2020 HDB BTO launch, there will be another HDB Development like Woodleigh Hillside. Based on the size of the development, it is likely that there will be eateries and shops there, which will be a good bonus for Bartley residents.
D. Are the resale properties undervalued?
There are 4 popular private condominium developments in the Bartley Cluster.
- Bartley Residences (99yr)
- Bartley Ridge (99yr)
- Botanique at Bartley (99yr)
- Oasis Garden (Freehold)
There are 3 new private condominium developments that will or are already launched.
- The Gazania (Freehold)
- The Lillium (Freehold)
- The future Jalan Bunga Rampai new launch (99yr)
Below are the prices of the resale and new properties in the Bartley Cluster:
In the price analysis, we will focus on three metrics.
- PSF/Year which is taking the average price psf divided by the remaining lease
- Rental Yield which is taking the annual expected rent divided by the property price
- Price difference to New which is taking the difference between the resale and new properties in the area
Based on a PSF/Year analysis, Oasis Garden is currently the cheapest in terms of PSF/Year due to its freehold status and lower PSF. This is probably due to being further away from the Bartley MRT station and being close to industrial properties which affects the desirability.
Bartley Residences has the next cheapest PSF/Year at 14.63 of all the 99-year leasehold properties. Given that the completion date of the other properties are less than 5 years apart, there should not be any reason for a big gap in pricing. Based on the PSF/Year metric, it seems that Bartley Residences offers great value.
Taking a look at Rental Yield, which is a good indicator of rental demand and desirability shows that the three leasehold properties at Bartley is around the 3% range, while Oasis Garden has a yield of 2.3%. This shows that the leasehold properties closer to the MRT are equally rentable, and hence rental yield will not be able to differentiate which is a better buy.
In the above analysis (image 11), which we have previously discussed in a previous article about resale properties, you will notice that the price gap between new and existing resale properties have increased significantly from 2015 to 2019. The current price difference between resale and new properties have hit an all-time high.
In the excel table analysis (image 10), a more detailed analysis on the new-resale price gap has been done. The price for Gazania, a new freehold launch has been adjusted downward 10% (assuming that freehold has a 10% premium at launch) for the analysis. After the adjustment, Gazania is still 40% more expensive than Bartley Residences, 30% more than Bartley Ridge and 24% more than Botanique at Bartley.
E. How are the layouts like?
1-Bedroom Layout Comparison
Oasis Garden does not have 1-bedroom units, the other three leasehold Bartley properties have 1-bedroom units.
While the size of Bartley Residence and Bartley Ridge are the same, the layout of the 1-bedroom for Bartley Residence is unique because the wardrobe is in the bomb shelter. Bartley Ridge features a more usual layout, but the bathroom can only be access from the bedroom. This means your guests will need to enter your bedroom to use the bathroom. This is not the case for Botanique at Bartley as the bathroom can be accessed directly from the living area through a sliding door.
Our opinion is that Botanique at Bartley features the most ideal floorplan layout because of its balanced space allocation throughout the living and bedroom space that is enhanced with a bathroom with two access points.
2-Bedroom Layout Comparison
We standardize our analysis by comparing only the 2-bedroom and 2-bathroom layouts for the properties, which are the most common layouts.
The 2-bedroom at Bartley Residences has an open concept kitchen, spacious living and decently sized bedrooms. The unit also comes with a bomb shelter which is common for Bartley Residences, this space offers occupants a generous storage space. For home buyers who value storage space and like an open concept kitchen, this would be a good choice.
The 2-bedroom at Bartley Ridge has an enclosed kitchen, spacious bedrooms and living area. As there is no storage space, you will need to build or buy storage cabinets to keep your belongings.
The 2-bedroom at Botanique at Bartley has a unique design. The 2-bedroom with a more common design only has 1 bathroom, so we have not included that layout in this analysis. You will notice that there are 2 entrances the moment you step into your entrance foyer. This is the 2-bedroom flexi layout that can operate as a Dual-Key, however, due to the design, there is a lot of wasted space such as the entrance foyer and long entrance way to bedroom 2.
The 2-bedroom at Oasis Garden is the largest among the four developments, given that it was built more than 10 years ago. It is spacious all around, even with bay windows, the rooms are still spacious. Generally, the floorplan for Oasis Garden is very functional with generous storage space in the bomb shelter.
3-Bedroom Layout Comparison
In this analysis, we took the common 3-bedroom floorplans to analyze.
The 3-bedroom for Bartley Residences features a joint living and dining area with a full length balcony which can be an alternate dining or entertainment area when you install a ziptrack. The unit comes with an enclosed kitchen, yard area with a maid’s bathroom and a bomb shelter for storage. The master bedroom has a balcony which appeals to balcony lovers. The common bedrooms will require good space planning to bring out the full potential of the space.
The 3-bedroom for Bartley Ridge has a similar living and dining area as Bartley Residences. The unit comes with an enclosed kitchen, yard and utility room for storage or can be used as your helper’s room. The bedrooms at Bartley Ridge are slightly larger than Bartley Residences. It is also nice that the standard 3-bedroom unit has 2 ensuite bedrooms as bedroom 3 has a bathroom with 2 access points.
The 3-bedroom for Botanique at Bartley has balanced space planning all around. Good size Kitchen with a yard, a functional living area and spacious bedrooms. What is lacking in Botanique is a utility or bomb shelter for storage. Home buyers will need to think of creative storage solutions to keep their belongings.
The 3-bedroom for Oasis Garden is spacious and very functional. The unit features spacious bedrooms even with bay windows. Wet and Dry kitchen with a yard and bomb shelter for storage.
The 3-bedroom layout for resale properties around Bartley Cluster caters to home buyers with different preferences and family needs.
F. Are Private Resale Properties in the Bartley Cluster worth considering?
Based on the numbers, a simplified analysis would give us an average resale property price around the Bartley MRT is $1,400psf, while the new properties in Bartley are priced around $2,000psf and other new properties around the area are at least $1,800psf. Given the price difference of $400psf between old and new properties or a 28% difference, while the long term New-Resale price gap average is 20% or less, we believe that resale properties are undervalued.
With the amenities and convenience of the Bartley Cluster improving in the near future and the potential Bidadari Wealth Effect creating many HDB upgraders who are likely to consider the surrounding private properties, we believe that resale properties in Bartley are worth considering.
In the next part, we will explore the resale properties in the Woodleigh Property Cluster. If you are interested to find out more, stay tuned!
May i know whats ur thought on bartley ridge vs bartley residences? Buying a 2br unit for own stay now (wouldnt mind renting out 1 room for some income) and wish for future value appreciation. Would greatly appreciate ur input thks.
Hi, the decision between bartley ridge vs bartley residence is usually the battle of preference between buying a condo beside a “gurkha camp” or not. And also depends on your preference on the facilities of the condo. In my personal opinion, both are good choices. Hope this helps! 🙂
Ok noted with thks!!
Hi,
Is the gazania a value at current price for long term own stay?
Hi royston, generally it will depend on which unit you select. And if you have a longer term horizon of >10-15 years, should be fine. It is good to note that there is a real premium for the condo in today’s price.