Upper Thomson (Parcel A) GLS

The research read

Upper Thomson (Parcel A) GLS is a planned scheme of about 595 units on Upper Thomson Road, in the Springleaf pocket of District 26. The lease is 99 years. The developers are a joint venture between Wee Hur Property and GSC Holdings. The state land site was awarded at $613.9 million, or $1,062 psf ppr, at the end of October 2025. Preview is tracked for Q1 2027 (est.), with completion around 2031 (est.).

Two facts define the site, and they pull against each other. The first is genuinely uncommon. The scheme takes in the existing Springleaf MRT (TE4) station entrance. The train is built into the block, not a walk across the estate. Our own data puts the station 0.13km away. The second is a confirmed constraint, not a gap in what we know. On our schools dataset the nearest MOE primary school is 2.65km away. So nothing falls inside the 1km or the 2km registration band. This is also the second high-rise plot in the pocket rather than the first, so it launches with a benchmark next door instead of into a vacuum.

The station and the reservoirs are the easy sell. The sums are the rest of it. What must the developer charge to clear its costs? Does that number ask buyers to pay more than the only evidence the pocket has? And what does a buyer give up in exchange for the station? Every figure below is either a tender fact, a policy fact, or a labelled estimate.

The plot nobody bid on, first time round

The land number carries a story, and the story explains the number. Parcel A was offered once before and failed to sell. The gap between the two tenders is the clearest before-and-after read on Springleaf demand that exists anywhere.

1. Dec 2023First offering closes with no bidsReported to have drawn zero bids, with a serviced-apartment requirement attached to the parcel cited as the deterrent. The clause was subsequently dropped.
2. Apr 2024The sister plot sells firstUpper Thomson Road (Parcel B) is awarded at $905 psf ppr to GuocoLand and Intrepid — the site that became Springleaf Residence, 940 units.
3. 24 Jun 2025Parcel A relaunched for tenderRe-offered without the serviced-apartment clause, into a precinct that by then had a live pricing benchmark next door.
4. 23 Oct 2025Tender closes with five bidsTop bid $613.9M — $1,062 psf ppr — only about 2% above the second-placed bid. Award followed on 31 October 2025.

Read it practically. A plot that attracted nobody in December 2023 attracted five bidders inside two years. The top bids clustered within 2% of each other. A wide spread would suggest one developer talking itself into a number. A 2% spread across five bidders is the market agreeing on what Springleaf land is worth. That is reassuring about demand. It is unhelpful for anyone hoping the winner overpaid and will be forced to launch cheap. By contrast, the Lentor Gardens site down the corridor drew only two bids in April 2025.

Building the price up from the cost stack

The land rate is the one fixed number, so any honest estimate starts there. At $1,062 psf ppr, Parcel A cost 17% more than the sister plot that became Springleaf Residence, and 15% more than Lentor Gardens. But it is not the corridor’s high point. Any page still saying so is working off 2025 data. Lentor Central (Plot 4) was awarded at $1,278 psf ppr in March 2026, 20% above this site. The table sets the awards out with their estimated breakevens, which is the comparison that actually matters to a buyer.

Land is one line in the stack. The site has 53,729 sqm of buildable floor area, or about 578,000 sqft. Spread our cost estimate across that and you get roughly $1,062 psf of land and $546 of construction. Then $192 of professional fees, $167 of finance and $118 of marketing. The estimated breakeven comes to near $2,085 psf ppr. Applying the 1.15–1.30 margin band we use on every project on this site gives an indicative launch range of $2,400–$2,710 psf. The full working is in our pricing methodology, and the corridor comparison sits in the land cost tracker. Note the construction line. At $546 psf it is the heaviest in the corridor table. That fits a site carrying green-design rules and an MRT structure to build around. The developer had that cost in its bid, not added afterwards.

One further read from the floor area. Take out the required shop and childcare space and roughly 551,000 sqft of housing is left, across about 595 units. That implies an average near 925 sqft per unit (est.), which is a mainstream family mix rather than a shoebox-heavy one. That is our inference from the tender record, not something the developer has disclosed. The actual mix is only known at preview.

The strongest card, and it is already running

Most launch transport claims depend on something being finished later, but this one does not.

• Springleaf (TE4), 0.13km. The development integrates the station's existing entrance structure. The Thomson-East Coast Line runs today, direct to Orchard, the CBD and Marina Bay with no interchange. Walk time is functionally a lobby-to-platform matter rather than a street walk — verify on site at preview.
• Lentor (TE5), one stop. The Lentor cluster's retail and F&B centre of gravity, and the nearest concentration of completed new stock.
• Woodlands North (TE1), three stops. The Singapore terminus of the Johor Bahru RTS Link, officially targeted to open by end-2026. A cross-border commute alternative, and a tenant-demand argument once it runs.
• By road, Upper Thomson Road gives direct frontage, feeding the CTE and SLE via the Upper Thomson and Mandai Road corridors. Thomson Plaza and Junction 8 are roughly a 15-minute drive.

With anything not yet built, we ask what holds if it slips. Here the answer is comfortable. The working Thomson-East Coast Line station carries the whole commute case on its own. The RTS link and the North-South Corridor, targeted for phased completion around 2027, are upside on top of a case that already stands. That is the opposite shape from most launches outside the central region, where the transport argument is a promise with a date on it.

The catalyst list, and how thin it really is

• Johor Bahru–Singapore RTS Link (targeted end-2026), three stops up the line at Woodlands North, connecting into the Woodlands Regional Centre employment base.
• North-South Corridor (phased, around 2027), an expressway-grade link from the northern towns to the city, running down the corridor this site sits on.
• Springleaf as a designated high-rise cluster under the URA Master Plan — Parcels A and B are the estate's first two high-rise residential sites, and the mandated on-site retail and childcare are part of that intent.
• Nature adjacency that cannot be replicated — Springleaf Nature Park, the Central Catchment Nature Reserve and the Seletar reservoirs are gazetted, not merely undeveloped.

That is a short list, and none of it is a new-town masterplan. Springleaf is a small, low-rise, largely landed pocket. It is getting two condos and a supermarket, not a Tengah or a Bidadari. What exists today is a row of shophouses opposite the site. Springleaf is not being transformed. It is being filled in. The accurate framing is narrower and easier to defend. This is a quiet green address with a working MRT station attached, whose shops are forming rather than formed.

Schools: what is actually within reach?

This is the site’s hardest constraint, and it deserves a straight answer. On our own schools dataset, measured straight-line from OneMap map data, the nearest MOE primary school is Peiying Primary at about 2.65km. Anderson Primary sits at about 3.03km, and CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ at about 3.25km. Nothing sits inside 1km, and nothing sits inside 2km. MOE measures priority on its own basis, so confirm the position on MOE SchoolFinder before you rely on it. But this is a confirmed absence rather than a data gap. No future information is going to move a school 1.7km closer.

What that costs a family is less than the headline suggests, and it is worth being precise about why. Distance matters most where a school is oversubscribed. On the 2025 registration record in our dataset, Peiying, the nearest school, did not ballot at Phase 2C at all. Phase 2C is the round left for families with no existing tie to the school. It had 105 places against 53 applicants. Anderson did ballot at 2C, with 91 applicants for 65 places. So did CHIJ St. Nicholas, with 71 for 41.

So a family here sits outside the 1km band for schools that, in the nearest case, are not fighting for places at all. Being inside the band gets a family into a ballot. It does not win one. And here there is often no ballot to enter. What is genuinely lost is the daily convenience of a school within walking distance, plus any within-1km advantage at the two busier schools. Our wider analysis is in primary schools and new launch demand.

On everyday life, the required on-site supermarket, shops and childcare centre will change the local offering a great deal. Today it is the Upper Thomson shophouse row and little else. Thomson Plaza, Junction 8 and the Sembawang and Yishun town centres are all drives rather than walks. The reservoirs, Springleaf Nature Park and the Central Catchment trails are the compensation. For a certain buyer they are the whole point.

What the rental numbers say, and why we will not pretend to know yet

There is no rental evidence for this pocket. We would rather say that than manufacture a yield figure. Springleaf Residence, the only comparison, does not complete until 2029. So the corridor has no letting history at all, and no live rental figure to work from. Anyone quoting a Springleaf yield today is borrowing it from elsewhere without saying so.

What can be said is structural. The tenant demand arguments here are threefold. The Woodlands Regional Centre jobs two stops away. Cross-border commuters once the RTS runs. And spillover as the Lentor cluster finishes and recycles tenants. Those make a rental market plausible. They do not make it rich. At an estimated $2,400–$2,710 psf entry, the starting yield will almost certainly disappoint. The same money buys more rent in a finished, established corridor. The case doing the work at this site is capital growth and the station, not income. An investor who needs the rent to carry the holding cost should model it in our new launch ROI calculator before committing, not after. For evidence on how District 26 exits have actually behaved, our study of Lentor Modern sub-sale profits is the nearest real-money read.

Who Springleaf actually suits

The clearest fit is the District 26 upgrader or right-sizer. They value a direct Thomson-East Coast Line commute and green, low-rise surroundings above being near a school. Think of an Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Yishun or Woodlands flat owner past their five-year minimum stay. They have real cash behind them, and they are buying a home rather than a trade.

A second group is local. Upper Thomson, Mandai and Sembawang Roads carry established landed estates. The right-sizer cashing out of a high-upkeep landed house into a lock-and-go condo in the same neighbourhood is a genuine, if quiet, pool. So are the grown children of those households. The third group is the buyer who simply wants the station, and for whom an entrance in the block is worth paying for.

It does not suit a family for whom a primary school inside 1km is the deciding factor. A Lentor address does that job, and we would rather say so than talk around a 2.65km gap. It also does not suit a buyer stretching to the last dollar on the assumption of a quick repricing. The pocket’s own evidence from a finished building does not arrive until 2029.

Duties, loan limits and progressive payments

As a private condo there are no citizenship or income ceilings. The duty and lending rules do the sorting instead.

Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty, as at this update, is 0% for a Singapore Citizen’s first property. It is 20% on a second and 30% on a third or more. Permanent Residents pay 5%, 30% and 35%. Foreign buyers pay 60%, and companies 65%. You can borrow up to 75% of the price on a first housing loan. That drops to 55% where the loan runs past age 65 or beyond 30 years. Your total monthly loan repayments are capped at 55% of gross income. The test uses a 4% floor rate, not the rate you are offered. Buyer’s Stamp Duty runs on the IRAS scale, and is due within 14 days of exercising the option.

Seller’s Stamp Duty is the tax for selling too soon after buying. For anything bought on or after 4 July 2025 it runs four years, at 16%, 12%, 8% and 4%. The clock starts when the option is exercised, not when you get the keys. On a building still under construction, that is the difference between clearing it near completion and clearing it years later.

Because the building is not yet built, payment follows the standard staged schedule. You pay 5% cash on booking, then 15% plus Buyer’s Stamp Duty within about three weeks at exercise. After that, instalments are drawn from the loan as construction stages complete. So the monthly outlay before completion is interest on what has been drawn, not a full repayment.

Run the actual numbers on our affordability calculator, stamp duty calculator and progressive payment calculator. Upgraders selling a flat should read selling an HDB to buy a new launch and the TDSR guide first. The order of sale and purchase drives both the stamp duty position and the deposit. The sensible step before any preview is an in-principle approval, and a repayment tested above today’s rate. We do not forecast rates.

Risks in a pocket with only one comparison

Every launch story deserves its counter-case. These are the trade-offs we would weigh, each with the context that sharpens or softens it.

• HighEntry price sits above the only comparable evidenceOur indicative $2,400–$2,710 psf is roughly 10% to 24% above the ~$2,178 psf average at which Springleaf Residence sold next door, and the precinct produces no completed-product or resale evidence until Springleaf Residence's 2029 completion. Mitigant: Springleaf Residence itself cleared 98% of 940 units at that level, so the demand is demonstrated rather than assumed — but demonstrated at a lower price point than this site needs.
• Moderate–highNo primary school within 2.65kmNothing falls inside the 1km or 2km registration bands on our dataset, which removes the school-priority family from the realistic buyer pool. Mitigant: the nearest school, Peiying, did not ballot at Phase 2C in 2025 (105 vacancies, 53 applicants), so distance priority buys less here than the headline implies; the mandated on-site childcare covers the under-fives.
• ModerateThin margin of safety in the land priceAt $1,062 psf ppr the land cost 15–17% more than the two D26 sites awarded before it, leaving the buyer less entry-price cushion. Mitigant: five bidders landed within 2% of each other, and the corridor has since repriced higher still — Lentor Central Plot 4 went at $1,278 psf ppr in March 2026, so this bid now looks like a mid-cycle mark rather than a peak.
• ModerateAmenity base is still formingToday's retail is a shophouse row opposite the site; there is no town centre, and the precinct's second condominium is what creates the catchment for one. Mitigant: the GLS terms mandate a minimum 1,500 sqm of supermarket, retail and F&B plus 1,000 sqm of childcare on site, so the baseline improves by contract rather than by hope.
• Low–moderateBuild complexity: BSUD plus a live MRT structureProximity to the Central Catchment reserve and the reservoirs brings Biodiversity Sensitive Urban Design obligations, and integrating an operating station entrance adds construction constraint — visible in the $546 psf construction line, the heaviest in the corridor comparison. Mitigant: it was priced into the bid and into the $2,085 breakeven, so it is not a cost that surfaces later as a price rise.
• LowEverything specific is still unreleasedNo official name, unit mix, site plan, floor plans or price list exists. Facing, stack orientation and layout efficiency cannot be assessed. Mitigant: this is normal at this stage of the cycle and all of it lands at preview — which is precisely when the estimates on this page get replaced with facts.

What we will be watching

1. 23 Oct 2025Tender closed, five bids$613.9M at $1,062 psf ppr; top bid about 2% above the second. Awarded to Wee Hur Property and GSC Holdings on 31 October.
2. 3 Mar 2026Developer guidance publishedWee Hur's FY2025 results commentary guided to a launch in the first half of 2027 and construction completion by the first half of 2031.
3. Q1 2027 (est.)Preview: name, mix, site plan and price listThe single point at which every estimate on this page becomes checkable. Developer guidance points to H1 2027; the preview package typically lands four to six weeks ahead of booking day.
4. 2H 2029 (est.)Springleaf Residence completesThe precinct's first completed product, and the first real rental and resale evidence anyone in Springleaf will have.
5. 2031 (est.)Estimated completionGuided for the first half of 2031. Seller's Stamp Duty runs from the exercise date, so a 2027 buyer would typically clear it around completion.

Our read on the Springleaf plot

Stated as a trade, it reads like this. You pay an estimated 10% to 24% above what the same pocket sold for eighteen months earlier. In exchange you get a station entrance built into the block and a fresh 99-year lease. You also get the newest stock in a pocket with only two high-rise sites. And a required shop and childcare base that does not exist there today. What you give up is any school inside the registration band. Also a formed local amenity base, and any evidence from a finished building before 2029. That suits the District 26 upgrader or landed right-sizer, on a seven to ten year view. They genuinely value the commute and the green setting. It does not suit a school-driven family, or an investor led by rental yield.

Two numbers will resolve this. The first is the launch price against our $2,400–$2,710 range. Near the bottom, the developer has passed some of the five-bidder discipline to the buyer. At or above the top, where Springleaf Residence’s own realised 1.29 times breakeven points, the buyer is funding the full margin. The second is how many units sell on day one, measured against Springleaf Residence’s near-complete sell-through. That tells you whether the pocket’s demand stretches to a higher price, or was specific to a lower one. We re-check both against the published price list the day it lands.

Wider context sits in our GLS pipeline tracker and our new launch versus resale case studies. Two appointed developer sales websites serve this project: Springleaf Central and Upper Thomson Residence. Interested buyers can use either to register interest, get the latest e-brochure and book a showflat viewing, and both post the preview timeline, unit mix and floor plans as the developer confirms them. Use this page as the yardstick to measure them against.

The short version on the Springleaf plot

• The station entrance is built into the block. Our data puts Springleaf MRT 0.13km away, and it runs today.
• No primary school falls inside 2km. The nearest is 2.65km away, and that is confirmed, not unknown.
• The plot failed to attract a single bid in December 2023, then drew five bidders within 2% of each other.
• Land cost $1,062 psf ppr. That is above the two earlier District 26 sites, but below Lentor Central’s $1,278.
• Our indicative launch range is $2,400–$2,710 psf. It is our estimate, not a developer figure.
• Springleaf Residence next door averaged $2,178 psf and is 98% sold. Our range asks 10% to 24% more.
• There is no rental evidence in this pocket at all, and none until 2029.
• Today’s local amenity is a shophouse row. The supermarket and childcare centre arrive with the building.

So what should you do with this? If a school inside 1km matters to your family, stop here and look at Lentor instead. No amount of new information will close a 2.65km gap. If the station is what draws you, note what Springleaf Residence next door achieved. It sold at 1.29 times its breakeven, which points at the top of our range rather than the bottom. So when the price list lands, check it against $2,178 psf rather than against our range alone.

Sources: URA Government Land Sales tender results and quarterly price index releases; development cost stacks and breakeven estimates from the PropertyInsider.sg cost model, applied to our own land-sale register; Wee Hur Holdings SGX disclosures (Mar 2026); LTA network records; MOE school data and P1 registration releases compiled in our own schools dataset; IRAS and MAS for duty, LTV and TDSR rules; our matched caveat dataset for Springleaf Residence and the Lentor corridor. Figures marked (est.) are our estimates and subject to change at preview; indicative launch pricing is produced by our own model and is not developer-confirmed. Past performance of comparable projects is not indicative of future results. This page is research, not financial advice. PropertyInsider.sg is an independent research publication and does not take developer fees for its research. The publisher’s agency is part of the developer’s appointed sales team for this project; that work sits outside the research desk and does not change our figures or verdict. See our editorial policy.

Page history

• 2 Oct 2026 — Link to the project’s appointed developer sales website reworded, so readers can see where to register interest, get the e-brochure and book a showflat viewing. Disclosure line updated to state that the publisher’s agency is part of the appointed sales team. No figure, table, source or FAQ answer changed.
• 30 Sep 2026 — Estimated breakeven restated on the PropertyInsider.sg cost model, which replaces the third-party cost stack used before: $2,085 psf ppr; indicative range now $2,400–$2,710 psf. Cost lines quoted in the text updated to match.
• 9 Sep 2026 — Plain-English pass. Prose rewritten for shorter sentences and first-read clarity, jargon explained at first use, a short-version summary added before the FAQ, and em dashes removed from body prose. No figure, date, table row, source, link or FAQ answer was changed in substance.
• 20 Aug 2026 — Editorial pass: section headings and framing rewritten to be specific to this project rather than shared house phrasing across the launch pages. No figures, sources, tables or FAQ answers changed.
• 19 Aug 2026 — Research read rewritten to the house standard, with four material corrections. Estimated breakeven restated from $1,720 to $2,086 psf ppr using the published cost stack, which is what our $2,400–$2,710 range is actually derived from. The claim that this is the corridor's highest land cost was retired: Lentor Central Plot 4 was awarded at $1,278 psf ppr in March 2026. Springleaf Residence's ~$2,178 psf was corrected from "resale" to its primary-market average — it does not complete until 2029, so no resale market exists. School distances replaced with our own dataset: nearest primary school 2.65km, with 2025 Phase 2C ballot figures. Land provenance timeline, rental counter-case, financing section and the GFA-per-unit inference added; preview dating aligned to Q1 2027 (est.).
• 22 Jul 2026 — Page published from the October 2025 tender award.
• Next scheduled update — the day the developer publishes a price list and unit mix, when the indicative range is replaced with actual pricing and the stack-level analysis is added.

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