Honest Insights On The Sen

The Sen is a 347-unit, 99-year leasehold condominium at De Souza Avenue, just off Jalan Jurong Kechil in Upper Bukit Timah — five 10-storey blocks by Sustained Land in joint venture with Ho Lee Group and Greatview Development, with completion targeted for August 2029. It grades a C (5.2) on our New Project Scorecard, the lowest of the projects we have reviewed this month, and it is the only one where the question is not what's left but why so much is left. Eight months after a quiet November launch, 204 of 347 units remain unsold. This is a review of what the C rests on, what the slow sell-down is telling you, and the one number that comes out better than the marketing suggests. Methodology published. No spin.

The NPS grades a project's fundamentals over a 10-year window — capital appreciation, rental growth, schools, MRT access and project size — from real URA transacted data. It is backward-looking by design: it reflects what the surrounding kilometre has done, lifted or docked for the project's own size, transport and schools. It is not a forecast.

The scorecard: one strong number, two weak ones

The Sen's 5.2 is not a verdict on the building. It is a verdict on the site.

Start with the good news, because it is real. Capital appreciation scores 7.8 — resale homes within a kilometre appreciated about 3.9% a year over the past decade on a same-property basis, which is a genuinely strong record. The model docks a fractional −0.09 for the project's own transport and school shortfalls, leaving projected growth at 3.83% a year. That clears the 3% bar with 0.83 of a point to spare. Upper Bukit Timah has been a good place to have owned property.

Now the site. Transport scores 0.0. The marketing positions The Sen "near Beauty World MRT"; the scorecard measures the actual OneMap walking route, which runs 1.27km to Hume station on the Downtown Line. It is not a walk-to-work address, and pricing has had to acknowledge that. Schools score 2.4 — one primary within the ring, Bukit Timah Primary at 1.07km, undersubscribed. In a district whose entire brand is schools, that is an awkward card to hold: the famous names of Bukit Timah are all further down the road.

The last number is the quietest and the most consequential. The district gross rental yield is 2.63% — the thinnest of any project on our board. Whatever The Sen is, it is not an income asset.

The launch: a placement, not an event

Sustained Land previewed The Sen on 31 October 2025 and launched it quietly over the weekend of 15–16 November by placement of units — the twenty-seventh and final new launch of 2025. About 80 units (23%) sold at an average of S$2,358 psf.

Within that number, the pattern is clear. All ten one-bedroom units went on day one, priced from S$993,000 — sub-million-dollar entry in a Bukit Timah postcode is, as Huttons put it, hard to beat. Seven of the eleven units sold in the VIP session were the largest layout in the project, the 1,453 sqft four-bedroom-plus-study. Two-bedders made up roughly 47.5% of sales and three-bedders about 30%. The developer's own explanation — year-end fatigue after a 27-launch year, and a locality that "sees slow but steady, sustained demand" from own-stay buyers — is more candid than most.

Eight months on, the caveat record stands at 143 units, about 41% of the project. The remaining 204 units span every format except the one-bedroom.

Note the four-bedroom line. Its from-price of S$1,995 psf sits 19% below the project's own 1,453 sqft transacted median of S$2,453 psf — a function of low floors and stack, but a wide gap by any standard, and the single cheapest way into this project per square foot.

The benchmark: the two neighbours that actually compete

The scorecard's default one-kilometre set includes Toh Tuck Lodge, a ten-unit freehold walk-up from 2003 whose "as-new" uplift is a large model estimate. Ignore it. The two comparables that matter are Daintree Residence (327 units, 99-year, completed 2022, 0.32km away) and Verdale (258 units, 99-year, 2023, 0.3km) — modern leasehold product on the same stretch of road.

You cannot set a new launch's PSF against a resale comp's raw PSF. Two adjustments are needed:

1. Lease decay. Daintree has roughly 92 years left against The Sen's fresh 99. On Bala's Table that is a factor of ~0.977, so its PSF lifts about +2.3% to a fresh-99 equivalent.
2. GFA harmonisation. Both Daintree and Verdale received planning permission before 22 January 2023, so their strata areas still count air-conditioner ledges and void space. The Sen's do not. The same apartment therefore shows fewer square feet — and a higher PSF — at the new project. The calculator lifts a non-harmonised comp by +6% (1–2BR) and +8% (3BR and larger).

Daintree's units have transacted at an average of S$2,013 psf. Lifted to a fresh lease that is S$2,060; harmonised for three-bedders, S$2,225. The Sen's three-bedroom from-price is S$2,220 psf — 0.2% below its like-for-like neighbour. Against Verdale, adjusted to S$2,145, the same stack asks a 3.5% premium. Read that again: at the entry price, a brand-new 99-year lease with a full warranty is being offered at the same money as four-year-old resale.

The premium does not disappear entirely — the project's transacted three-bedroom median of S$2,322 psf runs 4.4% above an adjusted Daintree. But the developer bought the De Souza Avenue site for S$278.9 million, or S$841 psf per plot ratio, and it has priced accordingly. PropNex noted at launch that new non-landed RCR homes averaged S$2,770 psf across 2025; The Sen's S$2,358 psf average is 15% under that.

How long you'd likely hold

Seller's stamp duty runs four years (16%, 12%, 8%, 4%), so no exit before year four is realistic and the shortest tier we publish is four-to-six years. Using the NPS calculator's model — 3.83% expected growth, a 3% target — here is the estimated holding period for each remaining stack, on price growth alone.

Every from-price clears in the fastest tier, and the four-bedroom clears it most comfortably — it enters 19% under its own format's median. But the tier is a function of where in the stack you buy, not of the project. Modelled growth of 3.83% beats the target by 0.83 of a point, so the tolerance is finite: a two-bedroom bought above S$2,453 psf slips to six-to-ten years, and above S$2,533 psf it needs more than ten. For three-bedders the thresholds are S$2,437 and S$2,516. Current asking prices at The Sen reach S$2,638 psf on the best floors — which is to say the top of the stack is already outside the six-to-ten-year tier on price growth alone. And rent will not rescue it: at a 2.63% district gross yield, the thinnest we track, income adds less here than anywhere else on the board. Figures are gross of stamp duty, financing and selling costs.

The honest verdict

The Sen is a C because two of its five factors are structural and cannot be fixed by the developer: there is no station within a walk, and there is no school catchment worth the Bukit Timah postcode. Those are the reasons 59% of the project is still on the shelf eight months after launch, and no amount of rejuvenation at Beauty World changes the walking distance from De Souza Avenue. What the C does not say — and what the arithmetic does — is that the site's one-kilometre resale record of 3.9% a year is stronger than the grade implies, and that Sustained Land has priced the entry stacks honestly: the three-bedroom from-price is fractionally below a like-for-like Daintree Residence, and the four-bedroom-plus-study enters 19% under the project's own median. This is a project to buy at the bottom of the stack and nowhere else. An own-stay family that drives, wants 1,453 square feet against the Bukit Timah ridge, and is untroubled by a 2.63% yield it will never collect, is getting the better end of a slow launch. A buyer reaching for a high floor at S$2,600 psf is paying a new-launch premium for a C-grade card, and the model gives that trade more than ten years to come good.

See the full scorecard and run your own unit price through the holding-period calculator at tribesg.com/nps.

Sources: NPS quality grade (C, 5.2), the five factor scores, the 3.83% modelled growth, the 2.63% district rental yield and the per-bedroom transacted medians per the TRIBE New Project Scorecard (URA Data Service transacted PSF; 1km same-property resale trend adjusted for project size, transport and schools; live dataset as at 9 July 2026; MRT distance measured on OneMap walking routes). The 31 October 2025 preview, the 15–16 November 2025 placement launch, the 80 units (23%) sold at an average S$2,358 psf, the block and unit breakdown (267 Classic units across three blocks, 80 Prestige units across two), the fully-sold one-bedroom stock, the VIP-session mix, Vincent Chew's and Mark Yip's comments, and PropNex's 2025 RCR new-sale average of S$2,770 psf per EdgeProp. The developer price list (1BR from S$993,000; 2BR from S$1.499m; 3BR from S$1.936m; 4BR+Study from S$2.899m; unit counts by type; 347 units total) per thesen-condo.com.sg. Current asking-price range (S$1,955–S$2,638 psf) and availability per PropertyGuru. The S$278.9 million / S$841 psf ppr land price for the De Souza Avenue site and the Sustained Land / Ho Lee Group / Greatview Development joint venture per EdgeProp and PropertyReviewSG. Daintree Residence (327 units, TOP 2022) and Verdale (258 units, TOP 2023) resale levels per the NPS 1km comparable set. Lease-decay adjustment per Bala's Table (~92 years remaining → factor ~0.977, using the calculator's convention of 96 years less building age); GFA-harmonisation uplift of +6% (1–2BR) and +8% (3BR+) per the NPS calculator's published methodology. Scores and holding periods are model outputs, not financial advice.

Silas Tan is a District Director at Huttons Asia and co-founder of TRIBE. He built the New Project Scorecard (NPS) and Resale Project Scorecard (RPS) on URA transacted data. This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial or investment advice. CEA Registration R000303I.