Novena Property Guide: Prices, HealthCity and Life in District 11
Updated 2026-08-16
Novena sits one MRT stop from Orchard yet trades at a discount to Singapore's prime shopping belt, with 1,841 live listings averaging S$5,861 per square foot. The district combines a nationally significant medical hub, strong schools and a rare concentration of landed homes in the Central Region.
Living in Novena
Novena occupies postal district 11 in Singapore's Central Region, wedged between Newton, Toa Payoh and the Balestier corridor. It is best known as the country's medical hub, anchored by Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the National Skin Centre and the National Neuroscience Institute, but day to day it functions as a self-contained residential precinct. Three malls cluster around the MRT station, with Velocity, United Square and Square 2 covering supermarkets, enrichment centres, clinics and food courts, while Balestier and Whampoa markets nearby handle hawker fare.
The character of the area shifts quickly as you move off Thomson Road. High-rise condominiums line the main arteries, but the streets behind them hold quiet landed enclaves, giving the district a lower-rise, more settled feel than most of the city fringe.
Transport and connectivity
Novena MRT station on the North South Line puts residents one stop from Orchard and roughly eight minutes from the city centre. The Central Expressway runs along the district's eastern edge for drivers.
The bigger change ahead is the North-South Corridor, a 21.5 kilometre transport route connecting Woodlands to the city through Novena. It opens in phases from 2027, with the tunnelled section serving this stretch targeted for 2029. The corridor includes dedicated bus lanes, with peak-hour bus time savings of 10 to 15 minutes projected, plus a cycling trunk route into town. Surface streets along the alignment are slated to be repurposed for walking, cycling and community space once construction wraps up, which should improve the streetscape around Thomson Road over time.
Housing stock and prices
Hombble tracks 1,841 live listings in Novena, split between 1,059 condominiums, 775 landed homes and just 7 HDB flats. That landed share is unusually high for a Central Region district and explains the headline numbers: the average asking price is S$10,115,272 on an average size of 3,744 square feet, working out to S$5,861 per square foot across all property types. Buyers focused on condominiums alone will find entry points well below that blended average, since the landed segment of bungalows and terrace houses along roads such as Gilstead and Trevose pulls the mean upward.
Market observers note that freehold condominiums in the district held between roughly S$2,600 and S$3,200 per square foot in early 2026, with 99-year leasehold stock below that. No new Government Land Sales sites have been released in district 11 since 2019, which limits fresh supply and supports pricing for existing freehold projects. Boutique freehold launches in the Newton and Novena corridor have been marketed at higher indicative ranges.
Schools and family life
District 11 carries one of the strongest school clusters in Singapore. Anglo-Chinese School (Junior), Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) and Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) sit in the Barker Road and Winstedt Road corridor, while St Joseph's Institution Junior and CHIJ Primary (Toa Payoh) are within reach. St Joseph's Institution International, a co-educational Lasallian international school, is located on Thomson Road in Novena itself, a draw for expatriate families. Combined with the tuition and enrichment centres concentrated at United Square, the schooling ecosystem is a core reason families anchor themselves here.
HealthCity Novena and the outlook
The defining long-term project is HealthCity Novena, a 17-hectare integrated healthcare precinct being built out around Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. When complete around 2030 it is planned to comprise 15 integrated buildings, increase healthcare space by roughly 150 per cent and serve about 30,000 patients, visitors, staff and students a day, double current volumes. The masterplan also folds in research, education, commercial and public spaces rather than clinical facilities alone.
For owners, that pipeline means a durable employment and demand base on the doorstep, particularly for rental units serving medical professionals. For buyers, Novena offers Central Region convenience at a discount to Orchard and River Valley on a per square foot basis, with better everyday amenities than most prime districts. The combination of constrained new supply, the North-South Corridor opening in stages from 2027 and the 2030 completion of HealthCity gives the district a clearer medium-term catalyst set than most established central neighbourhoods.