Are properties near Singapore’s popular schools more expensive?
Are properties near Singapore’s popular schools more expensive?
Parents are paying top dollar to move into homes closer to the schools for their children. But are these properties really worth more?
Every parent wants to do whatever is within their power to give their children a head start in life. Singaporean parents however, are known to take this even further, from endless rounds of tuition and enrichment lessons, insistence on the best grades, and of course, entrance into the most famous schools.
In Singapore, admission into a popular primary schools is determined by a few factors. These include the student’s parent being an alumnus of the school, having a sibling who is already a student in the school, or being affiliated with the school through an organisation like a clan association, or volunteering at the school. Of course, proximity to the school plays a part in gaining admission, and that’s where real estate prices come into play.
We typically think of homes within a one and two kilometre radius of these famous schools to be in much higher demand, because they increase the chances of admission into the school. As such, there is a pervading stereotype that these nearby properties command a far higher value.
We looked at three popular schools located in the East, Central and North as case studies to see if the hypothesis holds.
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Tao Nan School, one of the most popular schools in the East of Singapore, has the added benefit of being near to shopping malls like Parkway Parade and 112 Katong, as well as access to the beach at East Coast Park. For the most part, median per square foot prices closer to Tao Nan School are slightly higher than the rest of the district, by an average of 1.6 percent. However, this does fluctuate, and there are quarters when prices for the overall district are higher.
Located close to the junction of Bukit Timah Road and Farrer Road, Nanyang Primary School is set amidst some of the most expensive real estate in Singapore. A close similarity we see between both properties around Tao Nan School and properties around Nanyang Primary School is that prices began to fall faster than the respective districts’ declines in the recent quarters.
Like the East Coast, the Bukit Timah area is popular with well-heeled expatriates. Given a shrinking tenant pool and lower yields, we are seeing the effect of landlords offloading non-performing properties is a likely reason for the decline.
Elsewhere in Ang Mo Kio, CHIJ St Nicholas primary and secondary schools are popular with parents. The only time the overall district peaked past properties around CHIJ St Nicholas was during the launch of Aurum Land’s Three 11, which sold 62 out of its 65 units in Q3 2013. However, a likely reason for the more positive numbers for properties closer to CHIJ St Nicholas is that part of the radius falls outside District 20, into the slightly more expensive District 12.
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Despite properties closer to the school seeing higher transaction prices than in the overall district, they are still open to larger macroeconomic forces. More often than not, both trendlines moved in the same direction, and saw sustained drops in prices between Q3 2013 and Q4 2014.
In our three case studies, only one saw a clear increase in property prices over the rest of their respective districts. Given that, it is hard to conclude that properties near famous schools are definitely more expensive, or make better investments.
PropertyGuru also recently released the results of the Real Estate Sentiment Survey, with only 26 percent of respondents indicating that proximity to these popular schools played a part in their property buying decision. Two thirds of the respondents who felt this way were between the ages of 30 and 50.
It therefore seems that being close to popular schools might be one of many factors that affect pricing, but is unlikely to be the chief influencing factor.
Read the full article on PropertyGuru.com.sg.
Source: Property Report