Touring Seletar Hills Estate: Affordable Freehold Landed Homes From $3 Million - Stacked

Property Stories

10 min read

Note: The second last transaction at Jalan Ketumbit and the third last transition at Jalan Keruing were in the $2 million+ region but they occurred in 2021. However, I’m still mentioning them as buyers/sellers often like to use past transaction data to anchor their pricing. At the time of writing, the lowest asking price was $3.85 million for a 2,313 sq ft 999-year terrace house. (More on this later.)

Today, as per a reader’s request, we’re off to view Seletar Hills estate, specifically Jalan Ketumbit, Jalan Keruing, Jalan Antoi, Jalan Kelulut, and Seletar Hills Drive. I’ve included a screenshot of Google Maps below to help you better visualise, but basically, we’re touring the pocket of land between Yio Chu Kang Road, Jalan Selaseh Park, Jalan Kelulut, and Jalan Keruing.

The first thing you may notice when you look at the map is the two rows of shophouses in the estate: one opposite Jalan Selaseh Park and one along Jalan Kelulut.

Seletar Hills 2 — *Here’s the one opposite Jalan Selaseh Park – as you can see there is very limited open-air parking opposite the commercial units.*

Seletar Hills 1 — *It has quite a diverse range of shops.*

Seletar Hills — *An Italian restaurant.*

Seletar Hills 4 — *Standing outside the shops and looking at the park.*

Seletar Hills 5 — *The row of shophouses is broken up by a road. On the other end, you can find a Chinese restaurant and a small kopitiam.*

Seletar Hills 9 — *The kopitiam – I couldn’t get a photo of the actual stalls as there were a lot of people seated inside for breakfast.*

Seletar Hills 8 — *Small provision shop next to the kopitiam, convenient for grabbing a snack!*

Seletar Hills 10 — *Streets around the park and shops.*

Seletar Hills 12 — *We’re literally a stone’s throw from the main road (Yio Chu Kang Road) here – it’s the road behind the blue house.*

Seletar Hills 13 — *This is what the street to the left of the junction looks like.*

Seletar Hills 14 — *Did a quick Google search but didn’t see news of burglaries despite the warning sign above. (The only news I could find was the report about* *dead cats/alleged cat cruelty* *in the area in 2018.)*

Seletar Hills 16 — *As shown, the park is pretty spacious.*

Now, if you’ve been following this landed series, you might think that I’ll be a big proponent of the area. (As a huge fan of village life, I usually extol the virtues of landed estates which have shophouses and open spaces in them.) Unfortunately, this isn’t an estate that I’d be super keen to move to. Now, I’m not saying it’s a bad estate, just that it’s not for me (if I could even afford it) – let me show you why in the photos of the walkabout!

Seletar Hills 17 — Firstly, some of the roads are really congested due to people parking on the streets, making it difficult to drive through. (It’s also VERY difficult to find street parking – not an issue if you have one car but if you have more than one, it may be a problem.)

Seletar Hills 23 — *Now, cluttered streets aren’t unique to this estate – we’ve seen them in many other landed enclaves, such as* *Luxus Hills*. (It’s just next to Seletar Hills, actually.) However, not only are the roads here congested, but many are also narrow and curving, which makes it pretty stressful to walk around the estate. Now, if you’re not huge on walking, this won’t be an issue for you. However, if like me, you like the idea of “village living” because you want to be able to take a leisurely stroll to the shophouses and restaurants, the roads here make it more a pain than pleasure!

Seletar Hills 47 — *A few photos to give you a sense of the width/curvature of the streets here.*

Seletar Hills 7 — *If not, here are more photos.*

Seletar Hills 19 — As you can see, there isn’t much pavement to speak of in parts of the estate, making it necessary for you to walk on the roads, but due to the cars/curve, you can’t see on-coming traffic, which makes it stressful for both pedestrians and drivers!

Seletar Hills 18 — *This is one of the better pavements in the area.*

However, for a landed estate, I must say there are quite a few amenities inside, which make life more convenient. Besides the two rows of shophouses I showed earlier, there’s another one just two roads down (but on lower-lying land.)

Seletar Hills 27 — *You can find a physiotherapist/reflexologist here. Love the idea of being able to walk to a foot massage.*

Seletar Hills 29 — *As well as another Italian restaurant, art school and fitness studios.*

Seletar Hills 28 — *There’s more parking here (as compared to the other shophouses), and the road is also wider.*

Seletar Hills 30 — *Opposite the shophouses, there are more houses, separated by a road.*

Seletar Hills 31 — The road here is wider, straighter and easier to traverse, so you probably won’t have as much issue walking around if you live on this end and visit this row of shops (as opposed to the other row of shops.)

Seletar Hills 32 — *See how much broader the pavement is?*

We’re quite near the main road here (still Yio Chu Kang Road) so let’s wander out to see what’s outside.

Seletar Hills 33 — *As you can see, it’s a big road here (but not very busy when I visited.)*

Seletar Hills 34 — *There’s a petrol station across, which is helpful if you need things that you can’t get at the provision shop shown earlier (or to top up your tank.)*

The area feels a bit desolate but walk a bit further down and there’s also a bus stop, where you can take buses 50, 70, 70M, 103, and 854.

Seletar Hills 35 — *Turn in the other direction and this is what you see- quite an open area and some HDB blocks in the distance (The closest is about a 25-minute walk away.)*

Fun fact: Do you recognise the area? We were just across the road (behind the petrol station) when we toured the Gerald estate! (Bigger houses and a more spacious estate over on that side.)

Seletar Hills 36 — Now that we’ve seen the outside area, let’s head back into the estate.

Seletar Hills 37 — *Back at the shophouses we saw earlier.*

Seletar Hills 38 — *A closer look at the houses across the road. Have you noticed something? The house on the left is much bigger than its counterpart on the right!*

Seletar Hills 39 — *Which brings me to the other positive of this estate: there is a large proportion of original condition houses and thus a HUGE potential for plot ratio maximisation.*

Let me show you:

Seletar Hills 48 — *Example 2 (inter-terrace.)*

Seletar Hills 49 — *Example 3 (semi-D.)*

Seletar Hills 50 — *Example 4. (Have I made my point yet?)*

Seletar Hills 15 — *If not, here’s 1 more: the difference in colour should make the difference in size very obvious!*

Seletar Hills 25 — *Probably because of the potential for expansion, I saw several construction projects in the area.*

Seletar Hills 24 — *Of course, there are also parts of the estate that have been fully built up.*

Seletar Hills 44 — Nonetheless, there was definitely a MUCH higher proportion of vintage condition houses here as compared to other estates. (Keep in mind that old houses are a great opportunity if you want to design and build your own house. However, having more such houses in your neighbourhood may mean that you have construction projects near you for the foreseeable future, something that can be quite challenging in terms of noise, dust and even just having construction trucks block the narrow roads.)

I’d say the crux of this estate is that not all houses are equal: you’ll need to choose carefully for the best quality of life.

For example the houses here not only have wider roads with no street parking outside them (easier to drive/walk) they even have a small driveway in front of their gate, allowing them to park more than one car. (For contrasting examples, scroll back to the earlier photos – not going to show one, as it won’t be far to single out any property in particular.)

If you have a more limited budget, there’s also a cluster house development here: Seletar View.

Seletar Hills 21 — *Entrance to the cluster development. According to Google, there are 14 units here, which share a swimming pool, BBQ pit, and playground. (1 unit for sale at the time of writing for $3.1 million*.)

Seletar Hills 22 — *The cluster development is located on relatively higher-lying land (but is near the main road, Yio Chu Kang Road, so road noise may be an issue.)*

This brings us to the end of today’s walkabout – how did you find the area?

As mentioned earlier, although I find the area annoying to walk through, it does have a good number of amenities nearby! Besides the rows of shophouses within the estate, Seletar Hills is also very close to Greenwich V, a small mall about 10 minutes walk away (depending on which part of the estate you’re starting from) where you can find a Cold Storage, Toast Box, food court, Guardian, etc i.e. most of the amenities one would require is within walking distance. If that’s not enough, there’s also a Sheng Shiong about 20 minutes away at Jalan Kayu, a Giant about 10 minutes away at Buangkok Crescent, and Buangkok Square Mall about 12 minutes away. (No shortage of resources for kids such as a preschool, playland, dance academy and tuition centers at Buangkok Square Mall.)

In terms of the all-important primary schools, both Hougang Primary and Fernvale Primary are within 1 km of most houses in the area.

Unfortunately, you can’t have everything in life: like most landed estates, the public transport here is somewhat limited. There are the buses I mentioned earlier, but no MRT station close enough to (feasibly) walk to. (You could, however, take the LRT which is about 20 minutes away.)

Last but not least, let’s have a look at the previous transacted prices in the area since I mentioned them as a selling point:

Note: You can find more information on the past sales for Jalan Keruing, Jalan Ketumbit, Jalan Antoi, Jalan Kelulut, and Seletar Hills Drive if you click the respective links.

See you again next week!

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