Singapore Offers Two Housing Sites, One Carrying a Rare 100 sqm Minimum Unit Size

Singapore released two residential land sale sites on 29 September 2026, and the smaller of the two comes with an unusual floor on how small its flats may be.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority released two residential sale sites on 29 September 2026, at East Coast Road and Serangoon North View. Together they carry a maximum gross floor area of 8,805 square metres and 20,215 square metres respectively, and an indicative capacity of about 85 and 235 homes. Both are offered on 99 year leases and both are zoned residential. The detail worth noticing sits on the smaller one: the East Coast Road parcel is tied to a minimum average dwelling unit size of 100 sqm.

A size floor in a market of shrinking flats

That condition is the unusual element. Singapore's private housing debate has run for years on the shrinking apartment, with developers able to lift the unit count on a fixed floor area by building smaller. Fixing a minimum average of 100 sqm across a development does the reverse: it caps how many dwellings can be squeezed from the 8,805 square metres available, which is why the authority's own indicative yield for the site is only about 85 units. The site itself is two plots, of 2,481.1 square metres and 3,021.9 square metres.

Serangoon North View carries no such floor. Its 8,085.9 square metre plot supports 20,215 square metres of gross floor area and an indicative 235 units, and the release notes that the actual number of homes a developer provides may vary from that figure.

Confirmed List against Reserve List

The two sites reach the market by different routes, and the distinction decides whether anything gets built soon. East Coast Road sits on the Confirmed List, which means the state puts it to tender on a fixed schedule regardless of demand; its tender closes at 12 noon on 3 December 2026. Serangoon North View sits on the Reserve List, where a site is only triggered for tender once a developer commits to a minimum acceptable bid. Reserve List sites can sit untouched for quarters when sentiment is weak, so the confirmed parcel is the one with a date attached.

Where our own numbers sit

The Glopra row for Singapore, dated 20 September 2026, is deliberately narrow: it tracks a prime, non-landed private residential basket, priced at 22,446.4 US dollars per square metre with a monthly rent of 52.21 US dollars per square metre, giving a gross yield we calculate at 2.79 percent. Both sides come from one provider's own basket for the first quarter of 2026, which is why we mark the row medium confidence and label it prime rather than market wide.

Those figures answer a different question from the ones in the release. The authority is publishing land sale capacities, measured as permissible gross floor area on a state parcel before anything is built. Our number is a resale price per square metre of finished prime housing. One cannot be converted into the other, and the gap between them is where a developer's construction cost, financing and margin live.

For a foreign buyer, the decisive figure is neither. Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty for foreigners stands at 60 percent of the purchase price on any Singapore residential property, with buyer's stamp duty of up to 6 percent on top. Against that, a 2.79 percent gross yield, taxed at an effective 20.4 percent on rent for a non-resident claiming the deemed expense allowance, describes a market where the entry cost, not the income, sets the return.

Sources: Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, URA releases two sale sites at East Coast Road and Serangoon North View, media release PR26-68, 29 September 2026 https://www.ura.gov.sg/news/media/pr26-68/; Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, Annex A to media release PR26-68, site particulars https://isomer-user-content.by.gov.sg/467/81161585-8704-4ad0-9e41-770bc1e975cc/pr26-68a.pdf

Market data: Singapore