Foreigners Are Pulling Back From CCR. Locals Are Moving In Faster Than Ever.

Let’s start with a number that should get your attention: 353. That’s how many landed and non-landed homes priced at S$5 million or more changed hands in the Core Central Region in the first half of 2026, up 24.7 per cent from the same period last year, and the highest H1 tally in four years.

Now here’s the part most people miss when they read a headline like that. It’s not foreign money driving it. Foreign buyers accounted for just 4.7 per cent of new home purchases in the CCR this year, down from 60 per cent back in 2023. The gap isn’t being filled by overseas capital. It’s being filled by Singaporeans, new citizens, and PRs.

If you’re thinking about buying in District 10, that’s not a side note. That’s the headline.

The Business Times reported on July 13, citing Realion (OrangeTee & ETC) Research and Knight Frank Singapore, that the broader private residential market is cooling. Overall home sales excluding executive condominiums fell 12 per cent in H1 2026. At the same time, the prime end of the market did the opposite. It accelerated.

A few numbers worth sitting with:

• Average unit prices for large prime non-landed homes rose 8.3 per cent to S$2,689 psf, according to Knight Frank
• New CCR launches in the S$5 million-plus bracket saw sales jump 78 per cent, to 73 units in H1 2026 from 41 a year earlier
• New CCR condo sales overall jumped five times over, to 1,916 units in 2025 from 378 in 2024
• The median price gap between CCR and RCR homes narrowed to just 10.1 per cent in 2025, down from 21.5 per cent in 2024

That last point is the one I keep coming back to. Knight Frank’s Nicholas Keong put it plainly: the prime segment has become “a more accessible upgrade option for Singaporean buyers.” Read that again. Not “more exclusive.” More accessible. The gap between owning in District 9, 10 or 11 and owning in the Rest of Central Region is shrinking, not widening.

Here’s the logic most upgraders get backwards. They assume CCR is priced out of reach, so they default to RCR without checking the actual numbers first. That assumption made more sense in 2024, when you were paying a 21.5 per cent premium to be in the prime districts. It makes a lot less sense now, at 10.1 per cent and narrowing.

Add in what Huttons Asia’s Mark Yip flagged in the same report: demand in the CCR is increasingly local buyers “right-sizing,” adjusting their housing choices around lifestyle needs, location, and cost, not just wealthy investors parking capital. That’s not the ultra-luxury buyer profile. That’s the HDB upgrader, the PR settling into citizenship, the family who wants a District 10 address without a District 9 price tag.

This is the buyer Amberwood at Holland was built for.

Amberwood at Holland is a 212-unit, 99-year leasehold development by Sim Lian Group at Holland Link, sitting squarely in the Core Central Region, District 10. Sim Lian isn’t a developer taking a swing at CCR for the first time. This is the same group behind Treasure at Tampines, Emerald of Katong, Hillion Residences, and Lincoln Residences, developments with a track record of strong sell-through. You can browse the artist’s impressions in our gallery to see how the project itself is shaping up.

A few reasons this project lines up with exactly what the data above is telling us:

• Genuine CCR address. Not RCR dressed up as prime. Holland Link sits in District 10, the same postal district as the ultra-luxury projects named in the Business Times report. See exactly where the plot sits on the site plan.
• MRT connectivity that holds up. Amberwood is about 680m from King Albert Park MRT, roughly an 8-minute walk, on the Downtown Line, with a future Cross Island Line interchange from 2032.
• A unit mix built for upgraders, not just ultra-high-net-worth buyers. 74 three-bedroom units (872 to 980 sqft), 74 four-bedroom units (1,076 to 1,313 sqft), and 64 five-bedroom units (1,324 to 1,572 sqft). Full breakdowns and layouts are on the floor plan page. This is a project sized for the “right-sizing” family Mark Yip described, not the S$10 million-and-up ultra-luxury buyer.
• A land price that reflects current CCR economics. The site was awarded at S$1,432 psf ppr in August 2025, land pricing that sits within a rational relationship to where CCR resale and new-sale psf has been trending, not a speculative outlier.

Put the two pictures side by side. One is Business Times reporting that CCR is quietly becoming more accessible to Singaporean buyers as the price gap with RCR narrows. The other is a 212-unit CCR launch, from a developer with a proven track record, at Holland Link, with preview and showflat opening in mid-September 2026 and estimated TOP in Q4 2030.

That’s not a coincidence you want to sit out.

I’ll be straight with you. Pricing for Amberwood at Holland is indicative and will be confirmed closer to launch. But the CCR data trend above tells you something useful regardless of exact quantum: District 10 entry points priced for upgraders, not just for the S$5 million-and-up crowd, are getting harder to find as the CCR-RCR gap closes. Waiting for “more certainty” often means waiting for the psf to move against you instead. If you want to stress-test your own numbers first, our property tools will let you run affordability and comparison calculations before we even speak.

If you want the actual numbers, the indicative price list, how Amberwood’s psf is likely to sit against the CCR average of S$2,689 psf noted above, and which unit stacks make sense for your situation, that’s not something I can respond to in a blog comment. Register for the showflat viewing below and I’ll walk you through it directly, no obligation, just the numbers and an honest read on fit.

Quick answers below. For everything else, from tenure and maintenance fees to booking procedure, see the full Amberwood at Holland FAQ.

About Jon Tay

I’ve spent 15 years watching Singapore property cycles turn, and the pattern in this Business Times data is one I’ve seen before. When the CCR-RCR gap starts closing, it doesn’t stay open for long once the next launch reprices the district. I work the Bukit Timah and District 10 corridor specifically, not the whole island, because that’s where I can tell you, with numbers, whether a project like Amberwood is actually a good trade or just a good story.

If you’re an HDB upgrader weighing CCR against RCR, a PR or new citizen deciding where to plant your first purchase, or an investor reading these numbers and wondering if the window’s closing, register below. I’ll give you the indicative price list, the psf comparison, and a straight answer on whether this fits what you’re trying to do.