The Rainforest

The ground under it was tendered in 2011. Both ends of that are public; nobody puts them together.

The land under The Rainforest

HDB put this parcel out to tender and names The Rainforest as what was built on it. Everything below is from that tender: the dates, the winning price, and the 6 bids that came in.

  1. Tender launched21 Jan 2011
  2. Tender closed22 Mar 20116 bids received
  3. Awarded31 Mar 2011Camborne Developments Pte Ltd
  4. Winning tenderS$170,100,000S$3,454 per sq m of gross floor area · S$321 per sq ft
Parcel
Choa Chu Kang E5 Choa Chu Kang Drive
Site area
17,590 sq m
Lease
99 yrs
Plot ratio
2.8
Gross floor area
49,251 sq m
Sold as
EC
Every bid — all 6, as HDB published them
Ranked by amount. The gap column is each bid measured against the winning one — subtraction, not a judgement about whether anyone bid well.
#TendererBidBehind the winner
1Camborne Developments Pte LtdS$170,100,000—
2FCL Tampines Court Pte. Ltd. & Keong Hong Construction Pte. Ltd.S$159,040,000S$11,060,000 · 6.5%
3Qingdao Construction (Singapore) Pte LtdS$153,700,000S$16,400,000 · 9.6%
4Mequity (Hillview) Pte. Ltd.S$138,800,000S$31,300,000 · 18.4%
5Wee Hur Development Pte LtdS$119,600,000S$50,500,000 · 29.7%
6Mezzo Development Pte LtdS$117,160,000S$52,940,000 · 31.1%

What the land cost and what a unit sells for are not two ends of one sum. Between them sit construction over a multi-year build, financing, the development charge, marketing and agent commissions, GST, and the cost of holding unsold units. None of those is published for a named project, so this site does not estimate a developer’s cost or margin and no figure here should be read as one.

Source: HDB — Sites Sold by HDB · tender awarded 31 Mar 2011 · transcribed from HDB’s published tables on 2026-08-31 · prices are nominal and are not adjusted for inflation. HDB names the development on this row as “The Rainforest”. This parcel, from tender to today · Every land sale

What has been filed there since

2011 · the groundS$170,100,000S$321 per sq ft of gross floor area
Today · the homes on it$1,348median of 103 filed transactions, 2021-09 to 2026-09

Those two are not the same square foot. Gross floor area includes what nobody buys — the corridors, the car park, the plant rooms — so the land rate is spread across more area than a unit is sold by. The ratio is arithmetic on two published figures and is not a return, a profit, or an appreciation.

Year by year, for a median-sized unit

90–100 sqm band. Counts in brackets; a year with fewer than 3 filed sales is kept and marked rather than dropped, because a reader can discount a thin year and cannot discount one that was silently removed.
YearMedian psfAgainst the year before
2023$1,280 (1)—
2024$1,348 (1)+5.3%
2025$1,422 (1)+5.5%
2026$1,306 (2)-8.2%

The two ends of this page are not two ends of one sum. Between the tender and the first unit sold sit construction over a multi-year build, financing, the development charge, marketing and agent commissions, GST, and the cost of holding unsold stock. None of those is published for a named project, so nothing here estimates a developer’s cost or margin and no figure on this page should be read as one. Why that is refused.

The rest of it