Does Living on Top of an MRT Pay? What 22 MRT-Integrated Condos Tell Us About the Premium (2026)

We measured every recorded resale at 22 condos built into MRT stations. The station helps, but what you pay for it matters more.

An MRT station under the lobby is one of the strongest selling points a Singapore condo can have. Developers price it in, and buyers usually pay for it at launch. The harder question is whether that premium comes back when you sell.

To answer it, we looked at 22 condos built on top of or directly into an MRT station, from Compass Heights (launched 2001) to Zyon Grand (launched 2025), and measured what owners actually made when they resold. We then tested three suburban integrated condos against neighbours launched in the same town at around the same time. Every transaction figure in this guide is from URA REALIS caveats, pulled on 29 and 30 October 2026. We close with what the evidence means for Lentor Modern, Lentor's only integrated condo, and for Thomson Reserve, the new launch beside Upper Thomson MRT.

How We Measured the MRT Premium

Comparing raw price gains across condos is misleading, because a flat bought in 2006 and sold in 2026 has had far longer to rise than one bought in 2022. So for every resale and sub-sale we calculated the seller's annualised return, then took the median for each project. We also compared each project's launch price with its neighbours, to see how much buyers paid for the station up front and how much of that gap survives on resale.

The Scorecard: 22 MRT-Integrated Condos

The table lists all 22 condos, ordered from weakest to strongest median annualised return. Twenty have resales; J'Den and Zyon Grand have none yet. Treat Midtown Bay, Sceneca Residence and The Reserve Residences with caution, because each has only a handful of resales.

Source: URA REALIS caveats, pulled 29–30 October 2026. Gross returns before costs. *Too few resales to draw conclusions.

City-centre launches at high prices did worst

The four weakest records with meaningful resale volumes all belong to city-centre condos. Marina One Residences (Marina Bay, 2014) shows −1.5% a year, with 79% of its 113 resales at a loss. Wallich Residence (Tanjong Pagar, 2013) shows −0.7% and 60%. The Orchard Residences (2007) shows +0.7% and 41%, and Duo Residences (Bugis, 2013) +1.0% and 24%. Each launched at a high price for its location and time, Wallich Residence at $3,049 psf, and resale prices have not pulled far enough ahead to reward most sellers. Marina One's median resale today, $1,908 psf, is still below its $2,228 psf launch median.

The station did not protect these owners. In the city centre, MRT access is far less scarce than in the suburbs, so being built into a station adds less of an edge, while the entry price carries the full risk of the market cycle. Midtown Modern (Bugis, 2021) is a partial counterpoint at +3.2% a year with 7% of 29 resales at a loss, though over much shorter holding periods.

Older suburban launches: modest gains, few losses

Bedok Residences (2011), Watertown in Punggol (2012) and Hillion Residences in Bukit Panjang (2013) have median annualised returns of +1.7% to +2.4% a year. That is modest, but losses were rare, at 4% to 6% of resales. Being on the MRT appears to have protected the downside more than it boosted the upside.

Suburban launches since 2015: stronger, with a caveat

Integrated condos launched in the suburbs from 2015 show the strongest recent numbers: North Park Residences (Yishun) and The Poiz Residences (Potong Pasir) at +3.6% a year, Sengkang Grand Residences at +4.1%, Lentor Modern at +4.5%, The Woodleigh Residences at +4.7% and Pasir Ris 8 at +5.9%, with 0% to 1% of resales at a loss. Sceneca Residence (+3.6%) and The Reserve Residences (+3.8%) point the same way, on very few resales.

Two cautions. First, many of these owners held for shorter periods in a rising market, which flatters annualised figures; they have not yet been tested by a downturn. Second, Park Place Residences at PLQ (Paya Lebar, 2017) sits below the range at +2.6% a year, so a recent suburban integrated launch is not a guarantee either.

Buying early and cheaply beat everything

The best result in the set belongs to The Centris in Boon Lay, launched in 2006 at a median $547 psf and now reselling at about $1,647 psf: +9.2% a year, with only 2% of 606 resales at a loss. Compass Heights in Sengkang, launched in 2001 at $499 psf, has returned +3.5% a year across 624 resales, but 14% of them lost money. Its losses come mainly from owners who bought around 1999 to 2002 and sold in the slump that followed. What separates these two is when owners bought, not the station.

Does the Station Premium Last? Three Same-Town Tests

The scorecard shows how integrated condos performed, but not whether they did better than the condos around them. For that, we compared three suburban integrated condos with non-integrated condos launched in the same town within 2 years, at launch and on resale today.

Source: URA REALIS caveats, pulled 29–30 October 2026. Peer psf figures are for the peer group named.

Watertown: the premium was paid back

Watertown launched in January 2012 at $1,193 psf, a 35% premium to four Punggol condos launched within 2 years of it ($884 psf). Today its resale median is $1,685 psf against $1,603 psf for those neighbours, a gap of just 5%. Watertown owners have earned +2.4% a year, while owners at the four neighbours earned +2.7% to +3.2% a year. Buyers paid for the station up front, and the neighbours caught up.

Sengkang Grand Residences: more of the premium held

Sengkang Grand Residences launched in November 2019 at $1,742 psf, the same 35% premium over Parc Botannia ($1,286 psf). It has held more of that gap so far: $2,068 psf against $1,669 psf today, or 24%. It is a much younger project than Watertown, so it is too early to say whether the gap will hold.

Compass Heights: no premium paid, a lasting edge gained

Compass Heights shows the reverse. It launched in February 2001 at $499 psf, about the same as Rivervale Crest ($504 psf, so −1%). Today it resells at $1,337 psf against $1,056 psf, a 27% premium. Buyers who did not overpay for the station kept the benefit of it.

What This Means for Lentor Modern

Lentor Modern, built into Lentor MRT (TE5), is the precinct's only integrated condo and its first to complete. It launched in September 2022 at about $2,107 psf. Lentor Hills Residences, which is not built into the station, launched in 2023 at about $2,079 psf. In other words, buyers paid almost no premium for integration, unlike the 35% launch premiums at Watertown and Sengkang Grand Residences.

On resale, Lentor Modern's median over the last 12 months is about $2,405 psf, while Lentor Hills Residences' sub-sales over the same period ranged from $2,236 to $2,433 psf (URA REALIS caveats). Lentor Modern sits inside that range rather than above it. Across 69 resales, its owners have made a median +4.5% a year, with 1% at a loss.

Read against the same-town tests, that cuts both ways. Lentor Modern buyers did not pay a large station premium, so there is little premium to give back. Equally, the resale market is not yet paying a clear premium for the station either. Elsewhere, integrated suburban condos have kept a lasting edge of roughly +5% to +25%, but the data cannot tell you whether Lentor Modern will open a gap of that kind. For the full project picture, see our Lentor Modern review and Lentor Hills Residences review, or the Lentor MRT commute guide for what the station gives you day to day.

Thomson Reserve: What the Asking Prices Imply

Last updated: 30 October 2026

Thomson Reserve is the new launch on the former Thomson View site at Bright Hill Drive, developed by a joint venture of CapitaLand Development, UOL Group and Singapore Land Group, with 1,268 units on a 99-year lease. It is linked to Upper Thomson MRT (TE8) by a sheltered walkway but is not built into the station, so it would not count as integrated under the definition used in this guide. Previews began on 17 October 2026, the sales launch is on 31 October 2026 and TOP is expected in the second half of 2030, according to the developers' launch announcement. As of 29 October 2026, URA REALIS shows no caveats for the project, so there are no transacted prices to analyse yet.

We will update this section with actual launch prices once transactions are recorded.

In the meantime, here are the established condos within 1 km of Upper Thomson MRT that a Thomson Reserve buyer would naturally compare against:

Source: URA REALIS caveats, pulled 29–30 October 2026. Distances are to Upper Thomson MRT.

At its starting price of $2,608 psf, Thomson Reserve is about 11% above Jadescape's recent resale median and about 21% above Thomson Three's. Most units will be priced higher: at $2,800 psf, those gaps widen to about 20% and 30%.

Two points of context. First, these neighbours are completed projects launched between 2013 and 2018, so part of any gap reflects new versus older stock, not the station. Second, distance alone does not set the price here: Thomson Three is the closest to the station at 374 m, yet Jadescape, further away at 666 m but the newest, has the highest resale median and the strongest record at +5.4% a year. The checklist below uses recent launches as the yardstick; once Thomson Reserve's actual prices are recorded, that is the comparison to make. For the wider precinct comparison, see Lentor vs Upper Thomson condos.

A Buyer's Checklist for MRT-Integrated Condos

1. Measure the gap to recent neighbours. Compare the launch psf with comparable condos launched nearby in the last 2 years, on the same tenure. On this evidence, a premium of up to about 15–20% looks reasonable; above about 25–30% is risky unless you plan to hold for a very long time. Watertown and Sengkang Grand Residences both started at 35%.
2. Ask what the premium buys. A station with a mall and a bus interchange downstairs is a different proposition from a station entrance alone. The more of daily life the development puts on your doorstep, the harder it is for neighbours to match.
3. Check whether neighbours will catch up. New launches, new malls or new stations nearby narrow the gap over time, as Watertown's shrinking premium shows. Look at the URA Master Plan and upcoming land sales around the station before you pay up.
4. Treat city-centre record-price launches separately. In Marina Bay, Tanjong Pagar, Orchard and Bugis, the main risk has been the entry price and the market cycle, not the station. Marina One Residences, Wallich Residence, The Orchard Residences and Duo Residences all show it.
5. Choose the stack with care. Units facing the station, the bus interchange or a busy road can come with more noise and less privacy. Compare transacted prices by stack before you commit, rather than relying on project-wide averages.

If you are weighing Lentor Modern against the other Lentor projects, our Lentor property prices guide sets out transacted prices for all seven launched projects, and the 5-question Lentor Assessment narrows them down to the ones that fit your budget and timeline.