Dunearn House sells 56% at launch as buyers draw a price line

The first condominium in Bukit Timah’s Turf City sold 212 of its 380 units over the July 25 to 26 weekend, at an average of $3,140 psf. A few months ago, 56% would have read as a miss. Coming one week after Lentor Gardens managed 54%, it starts to look like the level today’s buyers are prepared to transact at.

What happened

Dunearn House, built by Frasers Property, CSC Land Group and Sekisui House on a Dunearn Road site the consortium won in a June 2025 state tender for $491.45 million, opened for booking on July 25. By the end of the weekend, the developers reported 212 units sold, a 56% take-up, at an average price of $3,140 psf.

Prices started from $1.475 million for a two-bedroom unit of 527 to 678 sq ft, from $2.597 million for a three-bedder, and from $3.588 million for a four-bedder. The buyer pool was overwhelmingly local: about 86% Singaporeans, 13% permanent residents from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and elsewhere, and 1% foreigners, according to the developers.

Frasers Property Singapore’s chief executive Soon Su Lin described the response as encouraging, with a mix of families wanting a Bukit Timah address near schools and green corridors, and investors backing the precinct’s long-term growth. The project is the opening act of the Turf City redevelopment, which is planned to eventually hold 15,000 to 20,000 public and private homes.

Families bought the middle of the range

The sales board shows exactly who turned up. The three-bedroom and three-bedroom plus flexi stacks, 20 units each, sold out. The three-bedroom plus study came close at 18 of 20, four-bedders reached 89%, and 43 of the 59 two-bedroom plus study units found buyers.

Family-sized layouts cleared fastest, led by the three-bedders. Source: developers’ sales figures via Realion Group

Justin Quek, deputy group CEO of Realion Group, said the pattern reflects owner-occupiers paying up for a supplementary study or flexi room, in a pricing band between $2 million and $3.8 million. He also observed young buyers arriving at the showflat with their parents, whose support helped secure the two-bedroom plus study and three-bedroom units. Huttons Asia’s CEO Mark Yip put a number on the band: about 79% of everything sold was priced below $3.5 million, which he considers the sweet spot for prime-district homes this year.

ERA Singapore’s CEO Marcus Chu traced most of the demand to people already living in Bukit Timah, Holland and the surrounding estates, including landed and condo owners right-sizing without leaving the neighbourhood. Some HDB upgraders likely came from Queenstown, where ERA counted 120 flats sold at $1 million or more in the first half of 2026, against 173 for the whole of last year.

Why 56% counts as a result here

Context favours the project. SRI’s head of research Mohan Sandrasegeran pointed out that the prime Core Central Region (CCR) had no new launches at all in the second quarter, with just 70 new units transacted, down from 701 launched and 697 sold in the first quarter. Dunearn House is the region’s first major launch of the second half, so it was always going to absorb whatever pent-up prime-district demand existed.

Scarcity helped too. ERA’s data shows Bukit Timah has seen only around 3,402 units of 99-year leasehold condos launched since 2010, and none since Fourth Avenue Residences in 2019. Median non-landed resale prices in the planning area climbed 38.5% from 2021 to 2025, outpacing the wider CCR’s 16.3%. PropNex CEO Kelvin Fong added that with recent land tenders pricing CCR sites beyond $1,600 psf per plot ratio, some buyers treated this launch as a chance to get in before future projects cost more.

And why it still trails the year

Against the rest of 2026, the weekend was soft. Nicholas Mak, chief research officer at Mogul.sg, calculated that the nine launches in the first half of the year averaged a 75.8% weekend take-up, with the March and April launches such as River Modern and Tengah Garden Residences clearing around 90%. The two most recent launches, Lentor Gardens at 54% and now Dunearn House at 56%, sit far below that.

Two launches in a row have landed near 55%, well below the pace set earlier in 2026. Source: developers’ sales figures; Mogul.sg research

Mak’s explanation is supply and price fatigue. Developers have released 17,917 units across 39 projects in the past 18 months, an annualised pace of nearly 12,000 units against average primary demand of about 8,766 a year over the past five years. Each project has also tended to launch above its neighbours’ prices, and he cautioned that developers may have to rethink pricing if mid-50s take-up becomes the benchmark. Huttons made a related point on this project specifically: at $3,140 psf, Dunearn House averaged only about 5% above some city-fringe projects that have crossed $3,000 psf this year, which is a thin prime-district premium.

What this means for you

• Wanted a family-sized unit here? The market has already voted: three-bedders are gone and four-bedders are nearly there. The remaining choice sits mostly in the smaller layouts, including 16 of the 59 two-bedroom plus study units, and there is no queue pressure on those.
• Buyers watching the wider market hold more cards than the headlines suggest. Two straight launches near 55% mean developers of upcoming projects are pricing against visible resistance, and 168 unsold units at Dunearn House will be sold over months, not days.
• Sellers of resale condos in Bukit Timah get a useful marker: a new 99-year leasehold benchmark at $3,140 psf sits well above recent resale levels at Fourth Avenue Residences and Royalgreen. Expect buyers to quote both numbers back at you.
• The launch calendar goes quiet from mid-August for the Hungry Ghost Month, then picks up from mid-September with projects including Amberwood at Holland, Lucerne Grand and The Thomson Reserve, PropNex expects. Their pricing will show whether developers heard the message.