Images from emrenoblog.
"Despite the government’s cooling measures, a Bishan executive maisonette has been sold for a whooping sum of $1,088,888, reported the media. The 27-year-old two-storey unit is located at Block 194 in Bishan Street 13, near a 24-hour food centre and a supermarket. The deal was sealed in October....
Read the full article here.

In February this year, the EMRenoBlog blogger posted an article on million dollar HDB. It is really interesting that nearly 10 months later, another unit is being sold at an even higher price.

The ironic thing is that with such draconian property rules in place, record high HDB transactions are still taking place in a supposedly "soft" market. 

I guess the buyer is a Chinese family (since Chinese believes that 8 is a lucky number) who is willing to fork out an astronomical sum of money to own such a unit. Really CASH RICH lei. O_o""

Nevertheless, what makes such a unit so special?
Let us take a look at the floor plan and you will understand why.


 Images from emrenoblog.

The likely question on most people's mind is that will there be more of such record breaking HDB units in future?!

I guess HDB units with very rare layouts such as the "'Sky Terrace'" will be able to command such a high premium - for now. Due to the reduced years remaining on the lease, it will be difficult for the buyer to secure a bank loan to finance the property. Unless the buyer choose to pay mostly in cash lar...

  Nonetheless, I believe the resale units from The Pinnacle DuxtonSkyTerrace and Skyville at Dawson would perhaps command an even higher premium due to their highly central location and their young age.

Images from lalaland

Images from archdaily

images from sglivingpod

However, with the recent HDB Herculean efforts to ramp up the tidal supply of  BTOs, such unique HDB layout will be a thing of the past. This is because in order to play catch up on the pent up demand of HDB flats, almost 95% of the HDBs built in the past 5 years are cookie cutter design; with similar extremely boring building facade. Don't know what I mean? Try driving through Seng Keng and Punggol and you will get it!

To be fair, even the mass-market condo looks the same (but thats another story!). I guess all of the developers; HDB and private developers alike, order their materials from the same supplier? Anyone can verify this? 

The HDB and private developers' effort to churn out units in the shortest possible time; either to meet the public demands for low cost flats or developer to milk as much money as possible from the homeowners and investors, the end result is that of homogeneous monotonous housing design. :( 

What about centrally located HDB units with "award winning" designs? I suspect with the emergence of million dollar HDB making headlines....HDB will eventually stop launching such projects in future.

To be frank, the stringent rules meant many people are either priced out of such centrally located HDB project or do not qualify. Looking at the amount of money invested, it is definitely a sure windfall for these lucky HDB applications. 


This certainly will ruffle some feathers among other HDB owners, I mean look at the amount of HDB BTO that has been launched in the outskirts. There is even some discussion in forums that HDB projects in such outskirts are meant for the new poor - meaning the HDB units purchased in such locations will have little and no resale value. 

Update: Million dollar HDB: Pinnacle@Duxton flat fetches resale price of $900,000