17 min read • Last updated 16 September 2026
Seven developers put in sealed bids for a small plot in Sin Ming on 15 September 2026.
The winning number came in above every forecast I had read.
$1,612 psf ppr.
By that evening, I had already heard the first reaction twice.
"They overpaid. Future buyers will be the ones paying for it."
I understand why people say that.
But I think it misses how developers actually decide what to bid.
Because a developer is not only buying a plot of land.
It is buying the next few years of work for its own people.
1. What Happened At The Lorong Puntong Tender?
Eco World Development topped seven bids for the Lorong Puntong/Sin Ming Avenue Government Land Sales site on 15 September 2026. It offered $208.1 million, or $1,612 psf ppr. The 99-year leasehold plot near Bright Hill MRT can yield about 140 homes. The bid beat analyst forecasts of $1,350 to $1,500 psf ppr.
Key Takeaways
- Top bid of $208.1 million, or $1,612 psf ppr, from Malaysia's Eco World Development. Seven bids in total.
- That is 11.1% above the second bid and about 7.5% above the top of the analyst range.
- URA puts the site at 4,283.1 sqm with a maximum floor area of 11,993 sqm and about 140 homes.
- The same street sold for $731 psf ppr about a decade ago, as the site that became Thomson Impressions.
- Newmark's head of research estimates the future condo could launch from about $3,000 psf.
- URA had not formally awarded the site at the time of writing. Everything below reads the top bid.
Three terms first, because the rest of this piece leans on them.
- GLS: Government Land Sales, the programme through which the state sells land to developers by tender.
- Plot ratio: how much floor space may be built, as a multiple of the land area. A plot ratio of 2.8 allows 2.8 square feet of floor space for every square foot of land.
- psf ppr: per square foot per plot ratio. The land price divided by the floor space the developer is allowed to build. It is the cleanest way to compare land prices across sites of different sizes.
Here is the full bid table, not a selection from it.
| Rank | Bidder | Bid price | psf ppr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eco World Development | $208.10 million | $1,612 |
| 2 | Hong Leong Holdings and TID | $187.33 million | $1,451 |
| 3 | Sunway MCL | $185.38 million | $1,436 |
| 4 | EL Development | $182.10 million | $1,410 |
| 5 | JBE Capital | $173.29 million | $1,342 |
| 6 | Santarli Realty, Heeton Holdings, Kay Lim Holdings and Sunray Group Holdings | $168.89 million | $1,308 |
| 7 | Kheng Leong Company | $162.15 million | $1,256 |
I checked the headline number myself rather than repeating it.
The site sits in the Bishan planning area, in District 20.
Ai Tong School is directly opposite.
Bright Hill MRT on the Thomson-East Coast Line is about a five-minute walk away.
It is Eco World's first time bidding in a Government Land Sales tender.
I keep a live record of the site, with its land cost, nearby places and school data, on PropertyInsider.sg's page for the Lorong Puntong GLS site.
2. Is $1,612 psf ppr Actually Expensive?
For this location, yes.
Look at how far it sits above everything around it.
It cleared the second-highest bid by 11.1%, or about $20.8 million.
It cleared the lowest bid by about 28%.
It cleared the top of the analyst range, $1,500 psf ppr, by about 7.5%.
And it came just two weeks after another strong result.
On 1 September 2026, a UOL, CapitaLand and SingLand group bid $1,537 psf ppr for the New Upper Changi Road site in Bedok.
Lorong Puntong came in $75 higher.
It is not the highest land price in Singapore, though.
Peck Hay Road in District 11 went for $1,865 psf ppr in June 2026. I track that and other state land results on my GLS site analysis page.
One analyst quoted by Stacked Homes called Lorong Puntong a new high for a residential state site in the city fringe. I have not been able to check that against a full tender history, so treat it as reported, not confirmed.
What Did The Same Street Cost Ten Years Ago?
About $731 psf ppr.
The earlier Lorong Puntong plot drew 18 bids and went to Nanshan Group for about $173.6 million, as reported at the time.
It became Thomson Impressions, a 288-unit condo.
So land on this street now costs about 2.2 times what it did.
That sounds dramatic.
Spread over 11 to 12 years, it works out to roughly 7% a year.
The more striking number is what the land costs for each home.
| Lorong Puntong site | Total land price | Homes | Land cost per home |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earlier plot (Thomson Impressions) | About $173.6 million | 288 | About $603,000 |
| 2026 plot (Eco World top bid) | $208.1 million | About 140 | About $1.49 million |
Roughly the same cheque.
Fewer than half the homes to spread it across.
That is why this site will need a high price per square foot, not only a high total price.
3. Why Would A Developer Bid This High?
Because doing nothing costs money too.
Most people judge a land bid by one question: will the project make a profit?
A developer asks a second question as well.
What happens to the company if we do not win?
I see five reasons in this tender. The first two matter most.
Good Land In Bishan Rarely Comes Up
The last state residential site sold in the Bishan planning area was in 2015, according to EdgeProp.
In recent years, the only new private launch right beside it has been Artisan 8, a 34-unit freehold project that came out in 2025.
Before that, the last launch in the wider Bishan area was Jadescape, in 2018.
Think about what a developer would need to find elsewhere.
A site near a working MRT station.
Opposite a primary school that families ballot for.
Inside an estate people already want to live in.
Those sites are not for sale every month.
The government decides how many state sites go to tender, and when.
The other route is a collective sale, where the owners of an older estate sell the whole site together. That needs most of the owners to agree, and those deals come and go with the market.
You cannot build more Bishan.
So when a plot like this does come up, every developer who wants to be in the area is bidding for the same thing.
A Developer Without Land Has Nothing To Build
This is the reason I think gets overlooked most.
A land bank is the set of sites a developer owns but has not built on yet.
It is, quite literally, the company's future work.
When a project sells out and is completed, the team behind it needs somewhere to go next.
Project managers need a site to manage.
Design teams need drawings to coordinate.
Sales teams need a showflat to open.
Finance teams need a project to fund.
Their salaries, the office rent and the overheads keep running whether there is a site or not.
So losing a tender is not free.
It can mean paying experienced people with nothing for them to work on.
Or letting them go, and struggling to hire them back when the next site comes along.
A developer running short of land may accept a thinner profit on one project just to keep its teams working.
Sometimes the right bid is the one that wins, not the one that squeezes out the biggest margin.
To be clear, this is how the industry works in general. I have not seen Eco World's internal plans, and I am not describing its staffing.
For Eco World, This Was A First Step In
Eco World has been in Singapore for more than a decade.
But mostly as a marketer. It opened its first international EcoWorld Gallery here in May 2015 to sell its projects in Malaysia, London, Sydney and Melbourne.
This was its first time bidding for a Singapore state site.
A newcomer faces a problem.
Local developers know the local building costs and the local buyers very well.
A newcomer that bids at the middle of the pack usually loses to them.
So the first site often costs a newcomer more than it would cost an established player.
That extra is the price of getting in the door.
A Small Site Is A Smaller Bet
$208.1 million is a lot of money.
But it is a fraction of the $1.43 billion top bid at New Upper Changi Road.
And there are about 140 homes to sell here, not a thousand.
When the site was released in June, ERA chief executive Marcus Chu told EdgeProp that a smaller site like this is easier for developers to manage, with lower risk and a more comfortable total price.
A high rate per square foot is easier to live with when the total is small and the homes are few.
They Are Pricing The Launch Day, Not Today
A developer does not sell homes on the day it buys the land.
It sells them after design, approvals and the start of construction.
So it bids on the prices it expects then, not the prices buyers are paying now.
Every tender that closes higher also raises the cost of replacing that land later.
And one piece of this location is still improving.
Bright Hill will become an interchange with the Cross Island Line, whose first phase the Land Transport Authority targets for 2030.
4. So Did Eco World Overpay?
Not necessarily.
But it has left itself less room for mistakes.
There are two forces pulling in opposite directions here.
What Supports The Price
- Ai Tong School directly opposite
- Bright Hill MRT about a five-minute walk away
- A future Cross Island Line interchange at the same station
- No state residential site sold in Bishan for about a decade
- Only about 140 homes to sell
- An established estate with shops, food and parks already built
What Limits The Price
First, the gap to the next bidder.
Eco World bid about $20.8 million more than Hong Leong and TID.
Spread across about 140 homes, that is roughly $148,000 per home. This is a rough figure, before any costs.
Second, the competition next door.
Thomson Reserve, with 1,268 homes, is targeted to preview in October 2026, well before Lorong Puntong can launch.
Its land cost $1,178 psf ppr. That is $434 cheaper than Lorong Puntong, or about 37% less.
Third, the resale market.
At Jadescape, a 1,152 sq ft three-bedroom sold for $3.055 million, or $2,652 psf, in July 2026. EdgeProp reports that as the project's highest price per square foot so far.
A new launch at $3,000 psf would sit about 13% above that.
Buyers compare these numbers.
And buyers do not care what the land cost.
Land cost sets the developer's floor. It does not set what buyers are willing to pay.
5. What Could The New Condo Cost?
From about $3,000 psf, on one estimate.
Wong Shanting, head of research at Newmark, told EdgeProp that the future project could launch at prices from $3,000 psf, based on the $1,612 psf ppr bid.
That is an analyst estimate, not a developer figure.
The project has no name, no unit mix and no launch date yet.
What would $3,000 psf mean in dollars?
Take a 1,152 sq ft three-bedroom, the same size as that Jadescape unit.
$3,000 psf × 1,152 sq ft = about $3.46 million.
That is roughly $400,000 more than the Jadescape unit fetched in July.
New launches often come with smaller layouts, so the real total price will depend on the sizes offered.
| Project | What the figure is | Price per sq ft |
|---|---|---|
| Lorong Puntong (future project) | Analyst estimate (Newmark) | From about $3,000 |
| Thomson Reserve | PropertyInsider.sg estimate, before launch | $2,370 to $2,680 (est.) |
| Jadescape | Resale, July and August 2026 | $2,631 to $2,652 |
| Artisan 8 (freehold, 34 units) | New sale range | $2,105 to $2,582 |
I set out how Thomson Reserve's estimated range was worked out in my commentary on Thomson Reserve's land cost and October preview.
6. What Is Around The Site?
Most of what a family needs, within a short walk.
Straight-line distances from the site:
- Ai Tong School, about 0.19km
- Bright Hill MRT (TE7), about 0.28km
- Peirce Secondary School, about 0.62km
- Thomson Plaza, about 0.72km
- Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park (Pond Gardens), about 0.72km
- Upper Thomson MRT (TE8), about 0.76km
- Lower Peirce Reservoir Park, about 1.05km
- Kebun Baru Market and Food Centre, about 1.06km
- Eunoia Junior College, about 1.10km
- Windsor Nature Park, about 1.23km
These are straight lines on a map, not walking routes. Check the ones you rely on with OneMap.
The full list, with walking and driving times for 27 places, is on the Lorong Puntong nearby-places and schools data on PropertyInsider.sg.
How Have Condos In District 20 Done?
Mostly well, on the record so far.
Across 3,822 matched buy-and-sell pairs in District 20 from March 1995 to August 2026, 95.0% of sellers made money.
The middle seller earned about 4.7% a year and held for 7.7 years.
For the whole city fringe, the middle figure was 3.8% a year.
That is what past sellers achieved. It is not a promise about any future project.
7. How Much Does Ai Tong School Really Matter Here?
A lot.
But an address within 1km buys a ballot, not a place.
Two terms help here.
Phase 2C is the Primary 1 registration stage for children with no family or other link to the school. It is the only stage where home distance decides who gets in.
A figure like 1.90× means 1.90 applicants for every place.
| School | Distance (est.) | 2026 Phase 2C | Demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ai Tong School | 0.19km | 1.90×, ballot for citizens within 1km | Very high |
| Ang Mo Kio Primary School | 1.22km | 0.20× | Vacancies available |
| CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School | 1.43km | 1.62×, ballot for citizens within 1km | Very high |
| Catholic High School | 1.66km | 1.56×, ballot for citizens within 1km | Very high |
Read Ai Tong's row carefully.
Even Singapore Citizens living within 1km had to ballot at Phase 2C.
So living next door improves your chances. It does not guarantee a place.
There is also a price finding worth knowing.
When I mapped primary schools against tracked launches for my Thomson Reserve commentary, city-fringe homes within 1km of a very high demand school came out about 4.3% cheaper, not dearer.
So buy near the school for the six years of short walks, not because you expect a premium.
You can test your own address with my P1 school checker for Phase 2C odds, and confirm the official distance with the OneMap School Query.
8. Should You Wait For This Launch Or Look Elsewhere?
It depends on what you are solving for.
Thomson Reserve previews in October 2026.
Lorong Puntong has no name, no plans and no launch date.
Those are two very different timelines.
Ask yourself:
- Do I need to move within the next two years?
- Is Ai Tong School the main reason I want this area?
- Can I carry the total price at around $3,000 psf, not just the monthly loan?
- Would a development of about 140 homes, with fewer households to share maintenance costs, suit my budget?
- How does the price compare with Jadescape resale and Thomson Reserve?
- If a sale is funding this, when will those proceeds actually arrive?
If the answers point to a near-term move, waiting for a project with no launch date is a real cost.
If the school is the whole reason, a unit this close to Ai Tong may be worth the wait.
My five-point framework for weighing up a new launch sets out how I work through that with clients.
9. My Take: A Land Bid Is Also A Staffing Decision
Put the two big reasons together and they explain each other.
Land in good estates is scarce.
And developers need land to keep their teams working.
So when a site like Lorong Puntong comes up, the queue is long.
Seven bidders for about 140 homes.
That queue, not greed, is what pushes the winning number up.
Now the part that matters for buyers.
"High land price means buyers will pay more."
Not automatically.
A developer can only charge what buyers will accept, and buyers will be comparing against Jadescape, Thomson Reserve and whatever else is selling nearby.
If the market reaches $3,000 psf by launch, the bid will look sensible.
If it does not, the developer's profit takes the hit first.
My base case is that this tender lifts the reference point for new homes in the Thomson and Bishan area.
That could make projects priced on older, cheaper land look like better value in hindsight.
But that is an expectation, not a forecast, and it only helps a buyer who holds comfortably through the years in between.
The developer has taken the risk on the land. You do not have to take the same risk on the price.
10. The Short Version
- Eco World topped seven bids at $1,612 psf ppr, or $208.1 million, for about 140 homes.
- That beat the analyst range and the second bid by a wide margin.
- Land on this street cost about $731 psf ppr a decade ago, roughly 7% a year of growth since.
- Developers bid high because good sites are scarce and a company with no land has no work for its teams.
- Newmark estimates the future condo could launch from about $3,000 psf.
- Ai Tong School is opposite, but even citizens within 1km had to ballot at Phase 2C in 2026.
So what should you do with this?
Treat $3,000 psf as a planning figure, not a price list.
Work out whether you could carry that total price on the layout you would actually buy.
And compare it with what Thomson Reserve and Jadescape resale offer before you decide to wait.
11. Frequently Asked Questions
Who won the Lorong Puntong GLS tender?
Malaysian developer Eco World Development submitted the highest of seven bids when the Lorong Puntong/Sin Ming Avenue tender closed on 15 September 2026. It offered $208.1 million, or $1,612 per square foot per plot ratio. It was the company's first bid for a Singapore Government Land Sales site.
Has the Lorong Puntong site been formally awarded?
Not at the time of writing. The tender closed on 15 September 2026 and the bids were published, but URA had not announced the award. The figures discussed here read the top bid, and would need revisiting if the site were not awarded.
Why did Eco World bid so far above analyst forecasts?
I think two reasons carry most of the weight. Well-located land in Bishan rarely comes up, with the last state residential site in the planning area sold in 2015. And developers need a pipeline of sites to keep their teams working, so a newcomer seeking its first Singapore site may accept a thinner profit to win.
Why do property developers need a land bank?
A land bank is the set of sites a developer owns but has not yet built on. It is the company's future work. Without it, project, design, sales and finance teams have nothing to work on while salaries and overheads keep running, so developers short of land often bid more aggressively to replace it.
What does $1,612 psf ppr mean?
It means $1,612 for every square foot of floor space the developer is allowed to build, not per square foot of land. For Lorong Puntong, $208.1 million divided by about 129,092 sq ft of maximum floor area gives $1,612. It is the standard way to compare land prices across sites of different sizes.
Is $1,612 psf ppr a record land price in Singapore?
Not overall. Peck Hay Road in District 11 went for $1,865 psf ppr in June 2026. One analyst quoted by Stacked Homes described Lorong Puntong as a new high for a residential state site in the city fringe, but I have not verified that against a full tender history.
How many homes will the Lorong Puntong condo have?
URA estimates about 140 homes on the 4,283.1 sqm site, with a maximum floor area of 11,993 sqm. URA notes that the actual number provided by the developer may vary. No unit mix or layouts have been published.
How much could the future Lorong Puntong condo sell for?
Newmark head of research Wong Shanting estimates it could launch at prices from about $3,000 psf, based on the land bid. That is an analyst estimate, not a developer figure. On a 1,152 sq ft three-bedroom, $3,000 psf would be about $3.46 million.
Which MRT station is nearest to the Lorong Puntong GLS site?
Bright Hill on the Thomson-East Coast Line, about 0.28km away in a straight line, or roughly a five-minute walk. Upper Thomson MRT is about 0.76km away. Bright Hill is also set to become an interchange with the Cross Island Line, whose first phase LTA targets for 2030.
Is the Lorong Puntong site within 1km of Ai Tong School?
Yes, on a straight-line estimate of about 0.19km, with the school directly opposite. But being within 1km buys a ballot, not a place. In the 2026 Primary 1 exercise, even Singapore Citizens within 1km had to ballot at Phase 2C, with about 1.90 applicants per place. Confirm your exact distance with OneMap.
Will the Lorong Puntong land price push up Thomson Reserve prices?
Not directly. Thomson Reserve's land was secured at $1,178 psf ppr, and that cost cannot change. What the tender does is lift the reference point for future new homes in the area, which may make projects built on older, cheaper land look like better value in hindsight.
When will the Lorong Puntong condo launch?
There is no launch date yet. The site still needs a formal award, a design, approvals and a name. Thomson Reserve, nearby, is targeted to preview in October 2026, well before any Lorong Puntong project.
Did Eco World overpay for Lorong Puntong?
Not necessarily, but it left less room for error. Its bid was about $20.8 million above the second bid, roughly $148,000 per home before costs. Whether it pays off depends on buyers accepting prices near $3,000 psf when the project launches, against Jadescape resale near $2,650 psf and Thomson Reserve.
What is the biggest lesson from the Lorong Puntong tender for buyers?
That a high land bid explains developer behaviour, not your purchase. Developers bid high because good sites are scarce and they need work for their teams. A buyer should still decide on the home, the total price, the school run and how long they can comfortably hold.
12. My Thoughts
A land tender is a developer telling you what it believes.
$1,612 psf ppr says Eco World believes in this corner of Bishan.
It also says something quieter.
That in Singapore, a well-located site is harder to find than the money to pay for it.
Developers need land the way shops need stock.
Without it, there is nothing to sell, and nothing for their people to do.
That explains the bid.
It does not decide your purchase.
Your purchase should rest on the home, the school run, the total price and how long you can hold it.
Scarce land is a good reason for a developer to bid high. On its own, it is never a reason for you to buy high.
Weighing up Lorong Puntong, Thomson Reserve or the Bishan resale market against what you already own? I work through the actual numbers with clients: sale proceeds, borrowing capacity, timing and the layouts that are actually worth the money. Get in touch to talk it through.
13. Sources And Update Log
Site details. The site area of 4,283.1 sqm, the maximum floor area of 11,993 sqm, the 99-year lease and the estimate of about 140 homes come from the Urban Redevelopment Authority's 25 June 2026 media release and its Annex A. URA notes the final number of homes may vary.
Tender result. The seven-bid table, the 11.1% gap, the analyst forecast range, the Eco World background, the 2015 date of the last Bishan state site, the Artisan 8 and Jadescape context, the Jadescape resale prices and the Newmark launch estimate follow EdgeProp Singapore's report of 15 September 2026. Marcus Chu's comment on small sites follows EdgeProp's report when the site was released in June 2026. The site had not been formally awarded at the time of writing.
Rail. The Cross Island Line interchange at Bright Hill and the 2030 target for the line's first phase are from the Land Transport Authority's Cross Island Line page.
Nearby places, schools and District 20 resale data. Distances, the 2026 Primary 1 phase ratios, the 3,822 matched District 20 resales, the Thomson Reserve estimated range and the Artisan 8 price range come from PropertyInsider.sg, the research platform I founded and publish. It compiles URA tender and caveat data, LTA and MOE data, and states its method.
Earlier Lorong Puntong tender. The $731 psf ppr rate, the 18 bids and the roughly $173.6 million price for the plot that became Thomson Impressions come from press reports at the time of that tender, as reproduced on property websites. I could not open the original URA release, so treat those figures as reported.
Other comparisons. The New Upper Changi Road result is from my New Upper Changi Road analysis. The Peck Hay Road rate is from my GLS sites page. Thomson Reserve's $1,178 psf ppr land cost and the school-price finding are from my Thomson Reserve commentary. The claim of a city-fringe land record was reported by Stacked Homes and is unverified.
My own arithmetic. The $1,612 check, the plot ratio check, the percentage gaps, the land cost per home, the roughly 7% a year growth, the $148,000 per home gap and the $3.46 million example are my calculations on the figures above.
What is still unknown. No award, no project name, no unit mix, no layouts, no launch date and no price list. Every price figure here is an estimate.
Update Log
- 16 September 2026. First published, the day after the tender closed on 15 September 2026.
- Next update. When URA confirms the award, when the project is named, and when a price list is published.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any property. Property investment carries inherent risks, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Always consult with qualified professionals, including financial advisors, legal counsel, and property agents, before making any property investment decisions. Jamus Lee and JamusProperty.com are not liable for any direct or indirect losses resulting from the use of information on this website.
Anything marked (est.) is an estimate and is not developer-confirmed. Jamus Lee is a licensed property agent (CEA Reg. No. R065771E) with ERA Realty Network Pte Ltd (Licence No. L3002382K) and also publishes PropertyInsider.sg, cited above.
