Two prime sites, 500 homes: URA tests the top end of the market

URA put two of the year’s most watched land parcels on the market on 13 August: a 6,007 sqm site at Marina Gardens Lane good for about 390 homes, and a 3,438 sqm plot on Orchard Boulevard estimated at about 110. Together they are a live test of how much developers will pay for prime ground in a market the government keeps supplying.

Both sites come from the Confirmed List of the second-half 2026 Government Land Sales programme, which URA says will release 4,745 private homes, more than 50% above the average annual Confirmed List supply of the past decade. The Marina Gardens Lane tender closes on 15 October, Orchard Boulevard on 29 October. Both are 99-year leasehold.

Prime-district land used to be the rare guest at these tenders. Nicholas Mak, chief research officer at Mogul.sg, counts five new Core Central Region residential sites among the 14 residential plots in this year’s GLS programme, which means a third of the state’s confirmed housing land this year sits in districts that were once starved of it.

Orchard Boulevard: small plot, big signal

The Orchard Boulevard parcel sits at the junction with Tomlinson Road, next to Orchard Boulevard MRT and surrounded by some of the most expensive addresses in the country: Four Seasons Park, Boulevard 88, Park Nova. It is the third state site offered along this stretch in recent years, and by far the smallest, with a maximum gross floor area of 9,627 sqm and a cap of about 110 units.

The 3,438 sqm Orchard Boulevard site sits at the junction with Tomlinson Road, a short walk from Orchard Boulevard MRT. Map data © OneMap, Singapore Land Authority; site boundary: URA GLS site data.

The two earlier sites tell you why every developer will study this one. In 2018, an SC Global-led joint venture paid $410 million, about $2,377 psf per plot ratio, for the Cuscaden Road plot next door, a record for residential state land at the time. The resulting Cuscaden Reserve struggled at its original asking prices and returned to market in 2024 markedly cheaper. The lesson stuck: when UOL and Singapore Land won the neighbouring Orchard Boulevard site in early 2024, they paid $428.28 million, a much more measured $1,617 psf per plot ratio. Their project, Upperhouse, sold 53.8% of its 301 units on its July 2025 launch weekend at an average of $3,350 psf and has kept selling since.

The last three government land sales around these two sites, in dollars per sq ft per plot ratio. Source: URA tender results.

Mak expects the new plot to draw two to five bids, at $1,750 to $1,880 psf per plot ratio, or roughly $181 million to $195 million. That would price the land above the 2023 site but well below the 2018 record. He estimates newer 99-year leasehold condos in the Orchard Boulevard area have transacted at median prices of $3,226 to $3,503 psf over the past year, against $2,950 to $3,266 psf for CCR leasehold launches generally, so whoever wins will be underwriting selling prices in that upper band. The 110-unit cap also forces a choice: build small units for the cap, or go with fewer, larger apartments and sell genuine luxury space.

Marina Gardens Lane: the follow-up act

The Marina South site is the bigger supply story: about 390 homes with shops on the ground floor, across the road from Gardens by the Bay and a short walk from the upcoming Marina South MRT station on the Thomson-East Coast Line.

Developers have a fresh reference point a few hundred metres away. The first Marina Gardens Lane site went to a Kingsford-led consortium in 2023 for $1.034 billion, or $1,402 psf per plot ratio. That project, the 937-unit One Marina Gardens, opened with a modest 38% weekend take-up, but Wong Siew Ying, head of research and content at PropNex, points out that caveats show 70.5% of its units sold by 4 August at an average of $2,969 psf, with prices holding steady as it sold through. The precinct’s other data point is a warning rather than an encouragement: URA rejected the sole bid of $984 psf per plot ratio for the nearby Marina Gardens Crescent site in 2024 as too low.

Wong expects the new site’s manageable size to widen the field, drawing mid-size developers who want a foothold in a precinct URA is building into a full residential neighbourhood between the CBD, Marina Bay Sands and the future Marina South Coastal Park.

What this means for you

• The government is deliberately keeping the supply taps open, including in prime districts. If part of your buying logic for the city centre is scarcity, that argument is weaker this year than it has been in a decade.
• Circle 15 and 29 October. Land bids are the most honest forward indicator in this market: strong bids mean developers are underwriting higher launch prices for the next wave of prime projects, thin ones mean caution at the top end.
• Do not expect these sites to produce affordable downtown homes. On analyst numbers, the Orchard plot only works at selling prices above $3,200 psf, and Marina South’s first project is selling at just under $3,000 psf.
• One Marina Gardens’ slow-burn sell-through, from 38% to 70.5% without price cuts, is the pattern to remember: prime launches no longer need a blockbuster weekend to get there in the end.