The tender for the Berlayar Drive Government Land Sales site closed on 4 August with exactly one envelope inside. A Hong Leong Holdings and GuocoLand joint venture offered $576.78 million, which works out to $1,515 psf per plot ratio, for a 99-year site that can hold about 415 homes a short walk from Telok Blangah MRT. Analysts had expected four to six bidders; they got one. They had also pencilled the land at $1,100 to $1,450 psf ppr; the sole bid beat the top of that range. One number says caution. The other says conviction. Both are worth reading, because this plot will shape how the Greater Southern Waterfront, Singapore’s biggest urban transformation of the coming decade, gets priced.
Source: URA tender results via EdgeProp, 4 August 2026.
What happened
Berlayar Drive is the second private residential plot released in the Greater Southern Waterfront precinct, the long-planned remaking of the old Keppel Club lands and, eventually, the city’s southern port frontage. The first, at Telok Blangah Road, went to Kingsford Group in November 2025. Put the two side by side and the direction of travel is clear: fewer bidders, higher price.
URA tender results via EdgeProp. Both sites are 99-year leasehold.
| Telok Blangah Road | Berlayar Drive | |
|---|---|---|
| Tender closed | Nov 2025 | Aug 2026 |
| Bids received | 3 | 1 |
| Winner | Kingsford | Hong Leong · GuocoLand |
| Price | $918.3m | $576.78m |
| Land rate (psf ppr) | $1,326 | $1,515 |
| Est. homes | ~745 | ~415 |
Berlayar Drive’s $1,515 psf ppr is the highest land rate the precinct has seen, about 14% above the first plot, set with no competing bid.
The sole-bid pattern, and why it does not mean cheap
Berlayar Drive is 2026’s second one-bid tender, after Sim Lian took Holland Plain at $1,491 psf ppr in May. A single bid usually reads as developer caution, and that caution is real: land is expensive, ABSD clocks are unforgiving, and developers are picking their spots. But a sole bid does not mean a bargain, for two reasons. First, URA can and does reject lowball sole bids; this same Hong Leong and GuocoLand pairing had a $984 psf ppr sole bid for Marina Gardens Crescent thrown out in 2024 for being too low. Second, the JV came in above the entire analyst range here. They were not trying to steal an uncontested site. They wanted this one.
Their track record explains the confidence. The same partnership was the sole bidder for the Upper Thomson Parcel B site at $905 psf ppr, launched it as the 941-unit Springleaf Residence in August 2025, and sold 92% on the opening weekend at an average of $2,175 psf; it now sits about 98% sold. Before that, their lone bid took the Lentor Gardens site at $985 psf ppr, which became the 533-unit Lentor Mansion: 75% sold on its first weekend at $2,104 psf, fully sold by November 2025. Bidding alone, launching well and selling out is close to a house style for this JV. Buyers should read Berlayar Drive in that light: a deliberate, priced-for-conviction move on a precinct they believe in.
What $1,515 psf ppr implies for the launch
The land rate is the floor under the future price list. On recent projects, launch prices have landed at roughly 1.8 to 2.4 times the land rate, with the multiple compressing as land gets dearer: Springleaf launched at about 2.4 times its $905 land, Lentor Mansion at about 2.1 times $985, and prime Dunearn House at about 2.2 times $1,410. Apply the conservative end of that band to $1,515 and the arithmetic points to a launch somewhere around $2,700 to $2,900 psf. That is our own approximation, not developer pricing, and the launch is likely a 2027 story with no date announced. But it sets the working anchor for what waterfront-precinct pricing will look like, and it says the days of imagining the Greater Southern Waterfront launching below $2,500 psf are probably over.
Why this corner of the waterfront
The site sits where the Southern Ridges meet the harbour: a short walk to Telok Blangah MRT on the Circle Line, beside the green spine that runs from Mount Faber through Labrador Nature Reserve, with the old Keppel Club lands and, in time, the freed-up city port stretching east of it. That is the long story buyers are being asked to pay for. The nearer story is demand: the precinct borders Bukit Merah and Telok Blangah, a mature heartland where five-room flats carry a median around $1.09m and four-room flats $938k, giving the area one of the wealthiest HDB upgrader pools in the country. Two projects, roughly 745 homes from Kingsford and 415 from this JV, will seed a precinct planned for far more.
Next: the 2H 2026 GLS programme, read in full →
Sources
Waiting for the Greater Southern Waterfront launches, or weighing a home nearby? We read the precinct the way a developer does: land cost, launch maths, and the exit demand behind it.
Estimates are ours. The launch-price range quoted is The Property Collective’s own approximation from recent land-rate-to-launch-price patterns, not developer pricing, and the tender award remains subject to URA. Launch timing, unit count and pricing can change.
Not financial advice. This is general commentary for informational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any property. Past performance of other launches is not indicative of future results.
Independent. The Property Collective is a team within PropNex Realty and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to URA, HDB, Hong Leong Holdings, GuocoLand or any developer.