Caldecott Hill Estate Good Class Bungalow (GCBA), District 11, Singapore

This GCBA is named after Sir Andrew Caldecott, Acting Governor of the Straits Settlement in 1934. The sprawling GCBA, the 3rd largest after Chatsworth Park and Ridout Park, once belonged to Novroji Mistri, founder of the Phoenix Aerated Water Co and a philanthropist, after whom Shenton Way’s Mistri Rd and SGH’s Mistri Wing was named after.

Caldecott Hill is perhaps most famous for being the former home of Mediacorp and its predecessor, the British Malayan Broadcasting Corp since the 1930s. The 752,015 sqft site has since been sold in Dec 2020 to Perennial Real Estate on a 99 Yrs lease. They will be redeveloped into 67x 2-storey bungalows of 800sqm each. The breakeven price for each bungalow in expected to be $9-10m. With a smaller land plot and a 99 yr lease, it represents a lower barrier entry into a GCBA and is similar to what was done with Capitaland’s Victoria Park Villas.

More recently in June 2021, this GCBA made the news after Ian Ang, co-founder of gaming chair co Secretlab bought his 23,424sqft GCB at 27 Olive Rd for $36m ($1537psf), smashing the psf record here. It’s just a pity that he will be tearing down what I’d say is a charming old house built in the 1940s. The last txn done was for 44 Andrew Rd sold at $20.5m ($744psf) in Nov 2020.

Despite its GCB status, it is located very near the Toa Payoh HDB estate, which means that cheap & good food await you. HDB also announced plans to build new BTOs at Caldecott MRT, prompting a wave of GCB listings when news broke out in 2017. This GCBA is also home to the famous row of florists along Thomson Rd, including Far East Flora.