The 1km School Ring: Singapore's Most Misunderstood Property Premium
Hombble Data · published 2026-09-07
Everyone "knows" that living within 1km of a good primary school costs more. The P1 registration priority makes the 1km radius a national obsession. So we measured all 23,049 condominium listings on Hombble against every primary school in Singapore, using our database of 2.3 million measured amenity distances. The truth is stranger, and more useful, than the folklore.
The Scala, beside Lorong Chuan MRT. School-radius searches around this area are among the most common address queries in Singapore. Photo: ProjectManhattan, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Finding 1: the "school premium" is backwards for most of Singapore
53% of condo listings (12,109 of 23,049) sit within 1km of at least one primary school. Those listings average S$2,023 psf, while condos outside every 1km ring average S$2,305 psf. Being near a school is associated with prices about 12% lower, not higher.
The reason is geography, not schools. Primary schools follow families into the heartlands and mature estates. The school-free zones include the CBD, Sentosa and the Orchard luxury belt, places where a condo costs plenty and the nearest P1 ballot is someone else's problem. For a typical buyer, being in *a* school ring costs nothing extra.
Mature estates like Bishan hold most of Singapore's school rings, and most of its affordable supply. Photo: MapStaringEnthusiast, Wikimedia Commons (CC0).
Finding 2: but the famous rings charge admission
Rank the rings around the perennially oversubscribed schools and the premium reappears. Average listing price per square foot within 1km:
| School (1km ring) | Avg listing psf |
| ACS (Primary) | S$2,965 |
| Kong Hwa | S$2,678 |
| CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' | S$2,517 |
| Ai Tong | S$2,489 |
| Maris Stella | S$2,367 |
| Catholic High | S$2,353 |
| Nanyang Primary | S$2,342 |
| Tao Nan | S$2,110 |
| All school rings (average) | S$2,023 |
| Henry Park | S$2,070 |
| Pei Hwa Presbyterian | S$2,064 |
| Nan Hua Primary | S$1,966 |
| Raffles Girls' Primary | S$1,908 |
| Temasek Primary | S$1,778 |
| Nan Chiau | S$1,776 |
The surprise value pockets: Raffles Girls' Primary (Braddell) and Nan Hua rings both price *below* the national school-ring average. Elite-adjacent addresses at heartland money.
The 1km priority radius around each primary school shapes where families buy. Photo: Sgwikicontributor, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Finding 3: scarcity is the real story at the most-balloted schools
How many condo listings are actually inside each famous ring right now, and what does the cheapest ticket cost?
| School (1km ring) | Live condo listings | Developments | Entry price |
| Pei Hwa Presbyterian | 378 | 41 | S$590K |
| Nan Hua Primary | 290 | 34 | S$790K |
| Nanyang Primary | 254 | 27 | S$958K |
| Temasek Primary | 214 | 33 | S$815K |
| Henry Park | 152 | 31 | S$1.37M |
| Nan Chiau | 139 | 7 | S$800K |
| Raffles Girls' Primary | 108 | 17 | S$850K |
| CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' | 19 | 2 | S$1.45M |
| Ai Tong | 18 | 1 | S$1.45M |
| Kong Hwa | 18 | 2 | S$1.30M |
| St Hilda's | 7 | 1 | S$1.64M |
| ACS (Primary) | 6 | 4 | S$2.0M |
| Maris Stella | 6 | 1 | S$1.47M |
| Catholic High | 2 | 1 | S$1.49M |
| Tao Nan | 1 | 1 | S$1.50M |
| Rosyth | 0 | 0 | Nearest condo listing is 1,404m away |
The spread is the story: 378 doors into Pei Hwa's ring, one single door into Tao Nan's, zero into Rosyth's. Ballot anxiety is really a supply problem, and it is wildly uneven. At some marquee schools, the "move within 1km" strategy is simply not executable with a condo today.
Method and caveats
Source: all 23,049 live condominium listings on hombble.com on 5 September 2026, measured against Singapore primary-school locations in Hombble's amenity dataset (2.3 million measured distances). "Within 1km" uses our recorded distances, which may differ slightly from the official door-to-gate measurement MOE and HDB use for P1 registration; buyers should verify with MOE's SchoolFinder before committing. Prices are asking prices of live listings, not transactions. Psf averages exclude listings with missing floor area. The school list covers 16 perennially oversubscribed primaries, per recent P1 Phase 2C ballot history.
Questions about the data, or want the per-school listing breakdown? Contact Hombble. The full dataset behind this analysis is available to journalists on request.
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