The Springside
Overview & Key Facts
The Springside occupies a quietly exceptional position in Singapore’s landed property landscape. Completed in 1999 by Kallang Development Pte Ltd — one of Singapore’s oldest private developers, incorporated in 1951 — the development sits on former plantation land that the company has held in its portfolio since before independence. When Kallang Development converted this freehold agricultural parcel into a residential estate along Springside Avenue in District 26, it created something increasingly rare: a purpose-built landed enclave where freehold tenure was preserved through conversion rather than awarded at a later date.
The estate comprises 61 terrace and corner terrace units spread across a low-rise landed environment defined by wide internal roads, generous land plots, and a near-total absence of high-rise intrusion. Units are three-storey-plus-attic in construction, with individual land areas ranging from approximately 1,663 sqft to over 4,000 sqft for corner configurations. Built-up areas extend to around 5,000 sqft for larger units. The architectural language is conservative — the late-1990s era favoured brick-red roofing, cream render, and semi-detached proportions rather than the glass-and-steel aesthetic of today’s boutique landed launches. This is a working neighbourhood built for families, not a showpiece.
Kallang Development also developed The Brooks I & II (completed 2016) on adjacent land within the same Springside precinct, adding 61 apartment units next door. This layered development history means the broader Springside area now hosts a micro-community of property types all sharing the same park connectors, local eating houses, and natural surroundings — a dynamic that suits buyers who value neighbourhood continuity over urban density.
Location & Connectivity
The Springside sits at the northern edge of what Singaporeans loosely call the “Upper Thomson corridor” — a stretch of road that begins at Marymount and gradually gives way to lower-density living, nature reserves, and the Mandai precinct by the time it reaches Springside. The estate is bounded to the south by Sembawang Road, with Lower Seletar Reservoir just minutes away by car and the green corridor of Springleaf Nature Park accessible from the Springleaf MRT station area. For residents who run, cycle, or simply enjoy morning walks among actual trees rather than ornamental planters, this part of Singapore remains one of the better-kept secrets in the north.
Public transport is the honest limitation of the address. Springleaf MRT (TE4) on the Thomson-East Coast Line is approximately 712m away — a walkable distance in theory, but a slightly awkward one in practice given the lack of covered linkways through this low-density precinct. In fair weather, the walk is pleasant; in a downpour or at midday, most residents will reach for car keys instead. The second-nearest station, Khatib (NS14), is nearly 2km away. Despite this, the TEL is a genuinely useful line — connecting Springleaf directly to Caldecott, Stevens, Orchard, and onward into the city without interchange. For professionals commuting to the CBD, a single train change at Shenton Way or Gardens by the Bay handles almost all destinations. Driving times are equally reasonable: the SLE and CTE are both accessible, and the CBD is around 25–30 minutes in off-peak conditions.
Day-to-day errands require a car or tolerance for occasional inconvenience. The nearest concentration of retail is the cluster of shophouses, cafés, and eating houses along Sembawang Road and Upper Thomson Road — a 3–5 minute drive that nonetheless delivers a genuinely charming neighbourhood dining scene, including the legendary Springleaf Prata Place. Thomson Plaza is about 10 minutes by car, and the full Yishun town amenity belt — malls, Giant, Sheng Siong, NTUC FairPrice — is 8–10 minutes in the other direction. Schools in the catchment include CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel (approximately 1.5km) and Anderson Primary (approximately 2km), making The Springside a credible address for families targeting the CHIJ and Presbyterian High School pipeline.
The neighbourhood’s defining asset, however, is its greenery. Springleaf Nature Park follows the Sungei Seletar river corridor and connects via the Springleaf Park Connector toward Lentor Avenue, offering residents a low-crowd, genuinely natural walking and cycling route that most of Singapore’s private estates simply cannot replicate. Lower Seletar Reservoir Park adds waterside views and fishing spots within a five-minute drive. Sembawang Country Club and Orchid Country Club are similarly close for golfers.
Facilities
The Springside is a landed terrace estate, and its facilities reflect that honestly: there is no common swimming pool, no clubhouse, and no gym within the development boundary. What residents gain instead is private space within their own units — select corner terrace and detached configurations include private roof terraces, attic rooms, and in the more generous plots, outdoor patios that function as genuine garden areas rather than token Juliet balconies. The shared community asset here is the surrounding landscape rather than a managed facilities deck: Brooks Park and Springside Park, both maintained by NParks within walking distance of the estate, serve as the effective “grounds” for the neighbourhood. These are proper green spaces with wide open lawns, not manicured ornamental strips.
For buyers accustomed to evaluating condominiums on a facilities checklist, The Springside will always come up short. That is the wrong frame. This is a landed estate where the value proposition is your own land, your own roof, and your own walls — not shared infrastructure. The absence of maintenance fees for common facilities is not a deficiency; it is part of the financial case for landed ownership. Residents who require a lap pool or tennis court will find The Brooks I & II (the apartment block on the adjacent Springside Green parcel) offers a 23m lap pool and conventional condo facilities — a neighbour development that fills precisely this gap for the wider Springside community.
“It felt like quite a nice and quiet self-contained village — there are tuition centres, cafés, and eating options within the estate, so you don’t constantly feel the need to drive out for small things. But you do need a car for anything serious.”
— Resident via Stacked Homes
Unit Sizes & Layout
The residential units at The Springside follow the standard format of late-1990s Singapore terrace construction: three storeys plus attic, with ground-floor living and dining zones opening to an outdoor patio or covered car porch. Typical terrace units come with five to six bedrooms, a domestic helper’s room, and a granny room on the ground floor — a layout that reflects the era’s assumption that multi-generational families and live-in help were the norm. Land areas range from approximately 1,663 sqft for standard intermediary terrace units to over 4,000 sqft for corner lots, with built-up areas extending toward 5,000 sqft. By any comparison with what developers build today — new 99-year terrace launches that routinely compress five bedrooms into 1,500–1,800 sqft land plots at twice the price — The Springside’s space ratios represent genuine value.
The trade-off is age. Units completed in 1999 are approaching their 27th year, and buyers should approach with the assumption that significant renovation investment is required before the home meets contemporary finishing expectations. Electrical systems, plumbing, kitchen fittings, and bathrooms will likely need full replacement in any unit that has not been comprehensively renovated within the last decade. The structural bones — generous ceiling heights, brick construction, wide internal staircases — are solid and respond well to modern renovation. Corner terraces are particularly attractive given their wider frontage, additional windows, and larger garden plots.
| Bedrooms | Transactions | Avg PSF | Avg Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 BR | 47 | $2,226 | $3,864,418 |
| 5 BR | 34 | $1,636 | $4,325,367 |
Pricing & Market Position
Based on 81 recorded transactions, sale prices range from $2,918,888 to $6,250,000, averaging $4,057,903 (~$2,311 psf).
Rents range from $2,700 to $9,500 per month across 44 rental transactions. Current rental yield sits at approximately 1.9%.
Price Appreciation
From 2021 to 2026, the average PSF has appreciated by 36.9% (from $1,558 to $2,132 psf).
Neighbourhood Comparison
Within the Springside precinct itself, the most natural comparison is Brooks Signature at Springside — Kallang Development’s own newer landed launch on adjacent land. Brooks Signature offers contemporary architecture, modern finishes, and larger plot configurations, but at a substantially higher entry price that typically starts above $4M. For buyers who want the Springside address without the renovation overhead of a 1999-era unit, Brooks Signature is the obvious upgrade path — though the premium is considerable. Further afield, Lentor Hills Residences (a mixed-use leasehold development near Lentor MRT) offers superior MRT connectivity and brand-new finishes but sacrifices both the freehold status and the distinctly village-like character that defines the Springside lifestyle. It is a fundamentally different product aimed at a different buyer. Springleaf Residence nearby adds further freehold terrace supply in the same TEL catchment, intensifying competition slightly but also validating the area’s broader appeal to families seeking the north’s quieter, greener character.
Against projects in other districts, The Springside benchmarks reasonably well on price-per-land-area for freehold terrace tenure — comparable quality in District 20 (Thomson / Bishan) or District 21 (Upper Bukit Timah) would command significantly higher asking prices for equivalent or smaller land plots. The discount to those more central locations is real and reflects both accessibility and density — The Springside is quieter because it is further from amenities, and that trade-off is ultimately a personal calibration. For the right buyer profile, District 26 freehold at current pricing represents a compelling long-run hold, particularly as the TEL matures and the Lentor–Upper Thomson corridor continues to attract fresh development and infrastructure spending.
| Development | Tenure | TOP | Units | ~Avg PSF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE SPRINGSIDE | Freehold | 1999 | 61 | $2,311 |
| SPRINGLEAF RESIDENCE | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2024 | 2025 | 941 | $2,178 |
| LENTOR MODERN | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2021 | 2022 | 605 | $2,137 |
| LENTOR HILLS RESIDENCES | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2022 | 2023 | 598 | $2,116 |
| LENTOR MANSION | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2023 | 2024 | 533 | $2,266 |
| LENTOR CENTRAL RESIDENCES | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2023 | 2025 | 477 | $2,222 |
ShiokNest Scores
Our proprietary scoring system evaluates THE SPRINGSIDE across multiple dimensions.
What Residents Say
“We’ve lived here for eleven years and have no plans to leave. The school run is easy, the neighbours all know each other, and on weekends we walk to the reservoir. You can’t get this kind of living anywhere near the city for this price.”
— Owner-resident via PropertyGuru
“The renovation cost us more than we expected, but the space we ended up with is extraordinary. Six bedrooms, a garden, and my mother-in-law has her own floor. You simply cannot get that in a new launch today without spending $5M or more.”
— Owner via 99.co
“The trade-off is real: you need a car, and the nearest supermarket requires a drive. But honestly, after living in a condo for eight years, the privacy and quiet here feels like a different country. The kids have a garden. We eat prata at Springleaf on Sunday mornings. Life is good.”
— Resident via Stacked Homes
“Resale values have held remarkably well. We bought at under $1,800 psf five years ago and the unit next door just went for $2,250 psf. Freehold land in Singapore doesn’t need to be explained — it explains itself.”
— Seller via EdgeProp
Strengths & Weaknesses
- Freehold land tenure — perpetual ownership, fully heritable with no lease-decay risk
- Generous land plots: 1,663–4,080 sqft with built-up areas reaching ~5,000 sqft — exceptional space for the price tier
- One of Singapore's oldest private developers (Kallang Development, est. 1951) with a proven, long-standing D26 presence
- Low-density neighbourhood: not a tall building in sight, genuine village-like ambience
- Springleaf MRT (TE4) ~712m away — TEL connects directly to Orchard (~19 min), Stevens, Caldecott, and future Changi Airport without interchange
- Walking access to Springleaf Nature Park and Lower Seletar Reservoir Park — among the best nature access of any Singapore residential address
- Recent transactions at ~$2,188 psf — underpriced relative to freehold terrace comparables in D20/D21 by 15–25%
- Strong rental demand from expat families on housing allowances; typical gross rental $6,000–$12,000/month for 5–6 bedroom units
- Multi-generational layout standard: granny room + helper room on ground floor in most units
- Profitability score 81/100 — above-average long-term capital appreciation underpinned by freehold land scarcity in OCR
- Walkability score 15/100 — extremely car-dependent; grocery runs, clinics, and most errands require driving
- No shared facilities within the landed estate: no common pool, gym, or clubhouse
- Second MRT (Khatib NS14) nearly 2km away — Springleaf (712m) is the only realistic public transport node
- Units completed in 1999 are ~27 years old; most will require substantial renovation budgets of $180,000–$350,000 before move-in
- Parking congestion along internal roads during weekends due to proximity of local eating houses and shophouses
- Higher entry price than leasehold landed alternatives — minimum spend for a standard terrace unit is $2.5M–$3.5M
- En-Bloc score 47/100 — limited collective sale potential given Kallang Development's long-term ownership philosophy and small 61-unit scale
- Limited retail and F&B within walkable distance; nearest major mall (Thomson Plaza) is ~10 min by car
Verdict
The Springside is unambiguously a home for buyers who have already made their peace with car dependency and are specifically seeking freehold landed tenure in a low-density, nature-adjacent setting that does not cost Bukit Timah prices. With recent transactions at approximately $2,188 psf on land area and rentals averaging around $6,784 per month, the gross yield profile for the category is thin — consistent with the wider Singapore landed segment where capital preservation and generational wealth transfer, not rental income, are the primary investment thesis. The profitability score of 81 on the ShiokNest model reflects the relatively clean freehold land position rather than yield outperformance.
The ideal buyer is a Singaporean family that prizes space, greenery, and privacy above convenience metrics, has at least one car per adult (the walkability score of 15 is not a rounding error), and is willing to budget for renovation as part of acquisition. The address works particularly well for multi-generational households given the typical six-bedroom-plus-granny-room layouts. It also attracts certain expat families — particularly those from car-centric cultures who are on housing allowances and find the idea of a private garden and quiet street more appealing than a city-fringe apartment. The holding advice is straightforward: freehold landed in District 26 is not a high-velocity asset, but it is an extremely low-risk store of value. Buy well, renovate well, and hold for at least seven to ten years.
The main competitive pressure on The Springside comes not from condominiums but from other landed projects in the north. Brooks Signature at Springside (adjacent, newer, with a premium price tag) is the most direct neighbour comparison. Lentor Hills and the broader Ang Mo Kio corridor offer better MRT access but sacrifice the village-like character that makes this specific Springside enclave memorable. For buyers who find The Springside appealing in concept but are deterred by the renovation commitment, The Brooks I & II on Springside Green offers the same location narrative in freehold apartment form — a cheaper entry point with shared facilities included.