Three Buckley
Overview & Key Facts
Three @ Buckley is one of the smallest freehold condominiums on Buckley Road — an ultra-boutique 11-unit development tucked into District 11’s established Newton/Novena residential belt. Where larger neighbours like the 49-unit Buckley 18 still feel small by Singapore standards, Three @ Buckley operates at an entirely different scale: a single low-rise block with the kind of footprint that more closely resembles a strata-titled bungalow project than a typical city condo.
The address sits roughly 410m from Newton MRT interchange (Downtown Line and North-South Line) and within walking range of Novena MRT. That dual-MRT positioning, combined with freehold tenure and an enviable schools roster — ACS (Primary) at 520m, Singapore Chinese Girls’ Primary at 410m, St. Joseph’s Institution at 860m — underpins both the development’s pricing and its long, thin transaction history.
Three @ Buckley does not try to compete on facilities, lifestyle theming, or sheer scale. The eight recorded resale transactions over the development’s history average S$3,417,100 (median S$3,428,000), placing it squarely in the upper-middle of D11 boutique freehold pricing. Median rents are running at S$7,800/month against an average of S$8,671/month across 14 leases — a thin but premium tenant pool that delivers a 2.73% gross yield. This is a building bought for what it is, not what it could become.
Location & Connectivity
Buckley Road is one of those quietly affluent Newton lanes that crawls between Bukit Timah Road and Dunearn Road, threading through a low-rise pocket of older walk-up apartments, GCB-adjacent landed homes, and a handful of small freehold condos. From Three @ Buckley’s gate, Newton MRT is approximately 410m on foot — comfortable in dry weather and entirely walkable in the 10-minute window most buyers consider their MRT-adjacency threshold.
The dual-line interchange at Newton matters more than the raw distance figure suggests. The Downtown Line gives one-seat access to Bugis, Promenade, and Bayfront in the CBD core, while the North-South Line feeds Orchard (one stop), Dhoby Ghaut, and the Marina Bay financial district. Novena MRT is a slightly longer 580m walk, but adds Velocity@Novena Square, the medical hub around Tan Tock Seng and Mount Elizabeth Novena, and an underrated F&B cluster.
For drivers, the location is similarly strong. The PIE entrance via Stevens Road is under three minutes away, Orchard Road is reachable in about seven minutes off-peak, and the CBD is roughly 12 minutes via Bukit Timah Road. The trade-off is the usual Newton catch: street parking is non-existent and the surrounding road network can clog significantly during morning peak, particularly along Bukit Timah Road westbound.
Daily errands lean on United Square and Velocity@Novena (both around a kilometre away), with Newton Food Centre — one of Singapore’s genuinely good hawker centres — about 600m down the road. The schools radius is the real headline asset: a 1km catchment captures ACS (Primary), Singapore Chinese Girls’ Primary, St. Margaret’s Primary, and CHIJ Our Lady Queen of Peace, plus the secondary belt of SJI, ACS Junior, and St. Margaret’s Secondary just outside it.
Schools & Education
3 primary schools within the 1 km Priority Phase balloting radius.
| School | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore Chinese Girls' School (Primary) | primary | Within 1 km |
| Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) | primary | Within 1 km |
| St. Margaret's Primary School | primary | Within 1 km |
| St. Margaret's Secondary School | secondary | Within 1 km |
| St. Joseph's Institution | secondary | Within 1 km |
| CHIJ Our Lady Queen of Peace | primary | ~1.0 km |
| St. Anthony's Primary School | primary | ~1.1 km |
| ACS (Junior) | primary | ~1.4 km |
Facilities
This is where Three @ Buckley’s ultra-boutique scale becomes most visible. With just 11 units across a single block, the facilities envelope is necessarily compact: a small lap pool (typically in the 12–15m range for projects of this size), a basic gym corner, BBQ pit, and landscaped common areas. There is no clubhouse, no tennis court, no function room, and no ambitious water features. What you get is private, low-traffic, and easy to maintain — not lavish.
“The reason buyers go for these tiny freehold projects on Buckley/Shrewsbury isn’t the facilities — it’s the privacy. You essentially get a quiet condo lobby, low maintenance fees by D11 standards, and you never queue for the pool.”
— Stacked Homes editorial, on Newton boutique freeholds
The maintenance-fee picture deserves attention. With only 11 strata owners splitting common-property costs, monthly maintenance contributions tend to land in the S$450–S$650 range depending on share value — meaningfully higher per square foot than larger condos like Buckley 18 (49 units) or Pullman Residences Newton (340 units), where the cost base is spread across far more contributors. Owners considering Three @ Buckley should model maintenance fees carefully, particularly for sinking-fund top-ups when major works (lift, facade, roof) come due.
Pricing & Market Position
Based on 8 recorded transactions, sale prices range from $3,300,000 to $3,600,000, averaging $3,417,100.
Rents range from $7,200 to $13,500 per month across 14 rental transactions. Current rental yield sits at approximately 2.7%.
Neighbourhood Comparison
Within walking distance, the most directly relevant comparable is Buckley 18 (49 units, freehold, TOP 2009, ~S$2,091 psf): a similarly-positioned mid-boutique that gives up some exclusivity in exchange for a meaningfully more active resale and rental market (90 lifetime rentals vs Three @ Buckley’s 14). For buyers who care about benchmarkable comparables and exit liquidity, Buckley 18 is the safer answer; for buyers who specifically want sub-15-unit privacy, Three @ Buckley delivers what Buckley 18 cannot.
Stepping out to broader D11 alternatives: Pullman Residences Newton (340 units, freehold, ~S$3,074 psf) offers full hotel-grade facilities and Newton MRT at 200m, but at scale that buyers seeking boutique privacy may find too dense. Watten House (180 units, freehold, ~S$3,236 psf) sits in the prized Bukit Timah/Watten Estate corridor with arguably stronger landed-enclave character but a less convenient MRT walk. Older 99-year stock such as Soleil @ Sinaran (~S$1,970 psf, 2006 lease commencement) and Amaryllis Ville (~S$1,899 psf, 1997 lease) trade meaningfully cheaper but carry the lease-decay drag that pure-freehold buyers in this submarket explicitly opt out of paying for.
| Development | Tenure | TOP | Units | ~Avg PSF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THREE BUCKLEY | Freehold | — | 11 | — |
| PULLMAN RESIDENCES NEWTON | Freehold | 2021 | 340 | $3,074 |
| WATTEN HOUSE | Freehold | 2023 | 180 | $3,236 |
| SOLEIL @ SINARAN | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2006 | 2011 | 417 | $1,970 |
| PEAK RESIDENCE | Freehold | 2021 | 90 | $2,489 |
| AMARYLLIS VILLE | 99 yrs lease commencing from 1997 | 2004 | 311 | $1,903 |
ShiokNest Scores
Our proprietary scoring system evaluates THREE BUCKLEY across multiple dimensions.
What Residents Say
“We chose this place because it’s genuinely walkable to Newton MRT and the kids’ school is just round the corner. The pool is small but we’ve never had to queue, and we know all our neighbours by name — that’s rare in Singapore condos these days.”
— Owner-occupier review compiled from 99.co
“Maintenance fees are on the high side for what you get in terms of facilities, but the trade-off is the privacy. There’s no security guard hassle, no crowded lift bank, and you never see strangers wandering through the carpark.”
— Resident comment thread via Condo Singapore Forums
“Rental tenant for two years — great location for working at Tan Tock Seng and dropping the kids at SCGS. Apartment was solidly built and quiet despite Buckley Road traffic. Only complaint: nowhere to park visitors.”
— Tenant review via EdgeProp
The recurring themes across the small body of available feedback are consistent with what a buyer would expect from a development of this size and positioning: privacy and walkability are the headline strengths; maintenance-fee value-for-money and visitor parking are the recurring pain points. The schools-belt convenience and the MRT proximity drive both owner-occupier and rental demand — but the tenant pool, like the buyer pool, is genuinely narrow.
Strengths & Weaknesses
- Genuine freehold tenure in prime D11 Newton/Novena
- Newton MRT interchange (DTL + NSL) walkable at ~410m
- Strong schools radius — ACS (Primary), SCGS, SJI, St Margaret's Primary all within 1km
- Ultra-boutique 11-unit privacy — almost no neighbour traffic
- Quiet, low-density street with GCB-adjacent character
- Easy CBD access (~12 min by car) and PIE entrance under 3 min
- Spacious unit configurations — 14-rental pool indicates 3-BR family layouts
- Tenant pool quality — average S$8,671/month rents skew expat/executive
- Limited supply pipeline — no major en-bloc plot or new launch directly competing on the same lane
- Walking distance to Newton Food Centre and Velocity@Novena
- Extremely thin liquidity — only 8 lifetime resale transactions
- Compact facilities — no clubhouse, function room, or full-size tennis/pool
- High per-unit maintenance share with only 11 owners splitting common costs
- Modest gross yield (2.73%) typical of prime D11 freehold pricing
- Visitor parking is essentially non-existent on Buckley Road
- Bid-ask spreads can widen sharply in soft markets due to scarce comparables
- Limited public data on internal layouts and unit-mix breakdown
- No major upgrade catalysts on the immediate horizon (no MRT extension, no precinct master plan)
- En-bloc score (44/100) suggests low collective-sale optionality despite small unit count
Verdict
Three @ Buckley is, in many ways, the textbook case for a particular kind of Newton boutique freehold: scarce, quiet, well-located, and aimed at a buyer who values privacy and tenure over facilities and upside. At an average S$3.4M entry price, you are buying into a building that will likely never have more than a handful of resale transactions per cycle — which is either a feature or a bug depending on what you want from the asset.
For an own-stay family that wants Newton/Novena schools, dual MRT proximity, and the freehold tenure that District 11 buyers traditionally prize, the value calculus works. The 2.73% gross yield is unimpressive on paper, but consistent with the rest of the prime D11 freehold cohort, and the absolute rent figures (S$7,800–S$8,700/month) suggest a tenant pool with genuine staying power. For an investor looking for capital appreciation and exit liquidity, the math is harder — with 8 lifetime resales, every transaction sets the comparable for the next, and bid-ask spreads can widen sharply when sentiment turns.
The honest comparison is to Buckley 18 a short walk away: same road, same district, same freehold tenure, but four times the unit count and a noticeably more active resale market. Buyers willing to trade some boutique exclusivity for liquidity and a fuller transaction history may find Buckley 18 the more pragmatic vehicle. Buyers who specifically want the smallest-possible-block experience, with the privacy and low neighbour density that comes with 11 units, will pay a premium for it here — and that premium is, broadly, what the recent transaction history reflects.