One Surin
Overview & Key Facts
One Surin is a niche freehold strata-landed cluster housing development at 1 Surin Avenue in District 19, tucked into the landed pocket between Upper Serangoon and Upper Paya Lebar. Developed by Urban Lofts Pte Ltd and completed in 2017, it comprises just 27 cluster terrace units on a site of roughly 44,000 sqft. This is not a conventional condominium — it occupies the narrow but increasingly sought-after strata-landed segment, offering landed living with communal facilities and compact upkeep.
Unit sizes range from about 3,681 to 5,264 sqft across four-bedroom-plus-terrace layouts, with every home fitted with a private lift serving all levels and two covered parking lots per unit. Original developer pricing sat between S$3.27M and S$3.39M. Resale transactions in 2025–2026 have been sparse but consistent — the ShiokNest data panel records 11 sales with an average price of S$3.44M and an average PSF of roughly S$910 over the trailing 12 months.
For buyers weighing strata-landed against traditional condo apartments, One Surin presents a distinct value thesis: freehold tenure, landed-scale floor areas at sub-S$1,000 psf, and a quiet mature neighbourhood — balanced against a small community size, limited rental market, and an off-MRT walk that demands either a car or tolerance for a 10–13 minute stroll.
Location & Connectivity
One Surin sits on Surin Avenue, a quiet secondary road branching off Upper Serangoon Road. The nearest MRT stations are Kovan (North-East Line) at ~0.86 km and Serangoon interchange (NEL + Circle Line) at ~0.90 km. Neither is a comfortable daily walk in Singapore's climate, particularly with groceries or young children, but both are accessible by a short bus hop along Upper Serangoon Road. Bartley MRT on the Circle Line sits 1.35 km away for residents heading east.
For drivers — and most buyers at this price point and format are — the location is genuinely well-positioned. The KPE, CTE, and PIE are all within a 5-minute drive, putting the CBD inside a ~20-minute off-peak commute. Paya Lebar, Tai Seng, and Ubi business clusters are each under 10 minutes by car, making this a defensible location for professionals working outside the CBD core.
Daily amenities are plentiful. NEX at Serangoon interchange — one of Singapore's larger suburban malls — is a 5-minute drive and houses a FairPrice Xtra, Cold Storage, Kopitiam, cinemas, and the Serangoon Public Library. Heartland Mall Kovan and the Kovan hawker cluster are closer still. The Hougang Food Centre and the row of shophouses along Upper Serangoon Road provide the kind of dense, unpretentious F&B scene that the area has always been known for.
Schools & Education
4 primary schools within the 1 km Priority Phase balloting radius.
| School | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Zhonghua Secondary School | secondary | Within 1 km |
| Zhonghua Primary School | primary | Within 1 km |
| Cedar Girls' Secondary School | secondary | Within 1 km |
| Cedar Primary School | primary | Within 1 km |
| Montfort Junior School | primary | Within 1 km |
| Montfort Secondary School | secondary | Within 1 km |
| Xinmin Secondary School | secondary | Within 1 km |
| Serangoon Secondary School | secondary | Within 1 km |
Facilities
For a 27-unit strata-landed project, One Surin's facilities are surprisingly comprehensive. The communal landscape is organised around water and greenery: a lap pool, wading pool, massage pool, reflective pool, timber sun deck, and a pool deck sit at the core, ringed by a fern garden, herb garden, meditation deck, butterfly walk, and an open lawn. A BBQ pavilion, cabana, and children's playground round out the social programming.
What is notably absent — by design — is the scale of facilities you'd find at a 500+ unit mass-market condo: no indoor gym of meaningful size, no tennis court, no function room circuit, no concierge. That is the correct trade-off for a 27-unit community; maintenance fees stay proportional, and the facilities that do exist remain genuinely uncrowded. Residents effectively have the pool to themselves most evenings.
“If you want a break from the city without leaving its amenities and convenience behind, One Surin is a good address. The compound is quiet and the pool area is rarely busy — it feels almost like a private landed home with a shared garden.”
— Summary of resident sentiment via Singapore Condo Review
Each unit's private lift is a significant quality-of-life feature that separates One Surin from older landed homes in the same catchment — ageing-in-place is materially easier here than in a traditional terrace without lift access, and this alone accounts for a meaningful slice of owner-occupier demand.
Pricing & Market Position
Based on 11 recorded transactions, sale prices range from $2,838,888 to $4,120,000, averaging $3,438,990 (~$910 psf).
Rents range from $11,800 to $11,800 per month across 1 rental transactions. Current rental yield sits at approximately 4.3%.
Price Appreciation
From 2021 to 2025, the average PSF has appreciated by 20.6% (from $760 to $916 psf).
Neighbourhood Comparison
One Surin's nearest comparables split into two camps. On one side sit the 99-year leasehold condo mega-launches: Chuan Park (S$2,596 psf, 916 units, 2024 lease), The Florence Residences (S$1,743 psf, 1,410 units), Riverfront Residences (S$1,586 psf, 1,451 units), and Affinity at Serangoon (S$1,698 psf, 1,012 units). These offer newer leases, larger communities, richer facilities, and stronger rental liquidity — but at 1.7x–2.8x the PSF and on wasting-asset tenure.
On the other side sit the traditional freehold landed terraces in Surin Avenue and the surrounding Serangoon Garden / Paya Lebar enclaves, including the Serangoon Garden Estate cluster at S$1,734 psf (landed freehold, higher quantum). Versus these, One Surin trades MCST convenience and a private lift for a smaller land share and shared facilities.
The honest read: if you want liquidity, yield, and MRT walkability, a nearby 99-year condo is the better fit. If you want pure landed ownership with long-term capital preservation, a freehold terrace remains the gold standard. One Surin is for the buyer who specifically values the middle ground — freehold, landed-format living, managed maintenance, and private lift access — at a PSF that makes the trade legible.
| Development | Tenure | TOP | Units | ~Avg PSF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ONE SURIN | Freehold | 2017 | 27 | $910 |
| CHUAN PARK | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2024 | 2024 | 916 | $2,596 |
| THE FLORENCE RESIDENCES | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2018 | 2021 | 1,410 | $1,746 |
| RIVERFRONT RESIDENCES | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2018 | 2021 | 1,451 | $1,589 |
| AFFINITY AT SERANGOON | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2018 | 2021 | 1,012 | $1,699 |
| SERANGOON GARDEN ESTATE | Freehold | 2021 | — | $1,735 |
ShiokNest Scores
Our proprietary scoring system evaluates ONE SURIN across multiple dimensions.
What Residents Say
“Very quiet development, and you really do feel like you're living in a landed home rather than a condo. The private lift is a game-changer when you're carrying groceries or have young kids.”
— Owner sentiment summarised from Singapore Expats community
“Location is decent if you drive. MRT is walkable but not in our weather — most of us drive or taxi. Schools are the big draw — Zhonghua and Cedar are literally around the corner.”
— Resident feedback via PropertyGuru
The community is small and tight-knit. With only 27 households, the development skews heavily owner-occupied, and turnover is low — several families have been in residence since TOP in 2017. Reviews consistently praise the quiet, the pool, the parking, and the schools; the most common complaints relate to the walk to the MRT and the dated interior finishings of some units, both of which are fixable or negotiable at the point of purchase.
Strengths & Weaknesses
- Freehold tenure in a district dominated by 99-year leasehold
- Landed-scale floor areas (3,681–5,264 sqft) at sub-S$1,000 psf
- Private internal lift in every unit — rare in landed/strata-landed segment
- Two covered parking lots per unit
- Exceptional primary school catchment (Zhonghua, Cedar within 0.5 km)
- Deep secondary school bench — 6+ schools within 1 km
- Very low density — only 27 units on ~44,000 sqft site
- MCST-managed facilities with pool, BBQ, playground, garden
- Strong driver-accessibility to CTE, KPE, PIE, CBD
- Quiet, owner-occupied community with minimal transience
- MRT not walkable in practice — 0.86 km to Kovan, 0.90 km to Serangoon
- Very thin resale market — only 11 sales recorded in trailing 12 months
- Virtually no rental liquidity — 1 rental transaction in trailing 12 months
- No traditional condo facilities (gym, tennis, function rooms)
- Interior finishings are developer-grade and may need refresh
- Small community limits amenities that scale needs to sustain
- Foreign buyer eligibility requires legal verification (strata-landed classification)
- ShiokNest Investment Score only 41/100 — reflects illiquidity
- Limited data for pricing comparables — only 4 years of PSF history
Verdict
One Surin is a specialist product for a specialist buyer. The value case rests on three pillars: freehold tenure in a district otherwise dominated by 99-year leasehold mega-launches; landed-scale floor area at a PSF (~S$910) that is a fraction of what nearby 99-year condos command (Chuan Park at S$2,596 psf, Riverfront Residences at S$1,586 psf); and an exceptional school catchment that Zhonghua and Cedar families will recognise immediately.
The counter-arguments are equally clear. Liquidity is thin — with only 27 units, the resale market produces a handful of transactions per year, and owners must be prepared for longer marketing timelines. The rental market is even thinner (1 recorded rental in the trailing 12 months), so this is fundamentally an owner-occupier asset rather than a yield play, despite the headline 4.25% gross yield figure. MRT walkability is borderline. And investment scoring is soft — ShiokNest's model rates it 41/100, reflecting the small pool and limited comparable velocity.
For a family with one or two cars, P1 ambitions for Zhonghua or Cedar, and a preference for the privacy and space of landed living without the maintenance burden of a pure landed home, One Surin is genuinely hard to replicate. For an investor looking for rental yield, capital velocity, or a clean five-year exit, the math is less forgiving — this is a decade-plus hold in a market where liquidity events are rare.