Say “Yishun” and a flood of jokes and whispers will overwhelm you – “siao lang” “murders” and “building a wall” around it come to mind.
However, contrary to the perception of the estate as an unsavoury place to stay in, one recent sale of a HDB flat has crossed the one million dollar mark, begging the question if times have changed with the neighbourhood becoming an actually liveable place.
A record broken in Yishun
The magical flat in question is actually a jumbo flat, one out of the estimated only 2,900 left in Singapore. Built in the 80s, these flats aren’t like the cramped smaller BTO flats of today – in fact, they are almost double the size of two regular HDB flats.
The transacted resale price for this flat is at a whopping $1.038 million, breaking the record for being the first million-dollar flat sold in the HDB town.
It’s also the second ever million-dollar flat sold in a non-mature estate, with the first being an Executive Maisonette in Hougang sold in 2018.
Where is the flat at?
Image adapted from: Google Maps
The unit sold is at Block 652 along Yishun Avenue 4 and is very close to Yishun Park, as well as hospitals such as Yishun Community Hospital and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. It also has a slew of childcare centres nearby.
Image credit: Google Maps
According to HDB’s Resale Flat Prices checker, the unit is situated in the 4th to 6th storey range, and measures 187sqm (around 2012 sq ft). There’s also a remaining lease of 69 years and four months, which means the unit was sold at around 30 years old.
This is not unusual for Yishun, as most flats sold this year were also in a similar age range.
Are Yishun flats getting more expensive?
But the golden question is this: is this flat a sign of increasing resale prices in Yishun?
Well, even though resale prices have been increasing, with over 260 $1M flats sold in 2021 alone, a closer look at Yishun’s data might suggest that this unit is an outlier rather than the norm.
A very spacious living room
Image credit: ThePropertyFriend
In contrast to other Yishun flats sold in earlier 2022, this particular unit was by far the largest in floor area, with the other units averaging only 140-plus square metres. The other notable exception was that of a unit at Blk 664, Yishun Ave 4, which went for $888,000 despite boasting a spacious 181 sqm room.
Image credit: HDB
That extra space of a jumbo flat might just have justified that shocker of a price tag. To benchmark, the average price of jumbo flats (classified as Executive) range from $740,000 to over a million.
In fact, a 40-year-old Ang Mo Kio jumbo flat was also sold for $1.03M previously, which proves that people are just willing to pay a premium for these multi-gen-friendly flats.
Yishun as a whole had a median resale price of $690, 000 for the last quarter of 2021 for Executive Flats. This was compared to $618,000 in the last quarter of 2020. This goes to show that on average, the price hike of flats in the area isn’t really that drastic, and the jumbo flat is an unusual case rather than being a symptom of an upward trend.
Whatever it is, we’d say Yishun deserves this much-needed win instead of making the news for wild boar attacks or other shady incidents. Till then, we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for the next million dollar flat that just might change our perceptions.
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