In this article
Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →A plot of land at Jalan Merbok, off Jalan Jurong Kechil in Singapore, has been put up for sale by expression of interest, EdgeProp Singapore reported on Wednesday 7 October 2026. The site covers 94,907 sq ft, comes with a fresh 103-year lease and is being marketed for senior living and care.
Knight Frank Singapore is the exclusive marketing agent. According to EdgeProp, no guide price has been set, and the exercise closes on Friday 6 November 2026 at 3pm. What follows sets out what is on offer, what the agent says can be done with it, and how it compares with a private assisted living site the state itself sold, at Parry Avenue in 2023.
EdgeProp Singapore, 7 October 2026, reporting the launch by Knight Frank Singapore.
What is being sold, and how
The land sits in the Toh Tuck landed housing area, near Bukit Batok, Beauty World and Upper Bukit Timah, EdgeProp reports. The paper describes the surroundings as a mature residential catchment made up of both private and public housing, which is the population a care operator would draw residents and day visitors from.
Two features of the offer stand out. The first is the tenure. EdgeProp describes it as a fresh 103-year leasehold, which means a buyer would start with the full term rather than the remainder of an older lease. The second is the zoning. Under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's Master Plan 2025 the site is zoned "Educational Institution", not residential and not health and medical care, so what can be built there depends on what the authorities agree to.
The sale method follows from that. In this expression of interest there is no asking price to meet. EdgeProp reports that interested parties submit an offer together with a proposed concept for the site. A bid therefore carries two things at once, the money and the plan. The report does not name the owner of the land, and it gives no plot ratio or permitted floor area, the two figures a buyer would normally use to work out a price per square foot of buildable space.
Related readUS home flippers' typical margin slips to 21.5% in second quarterThe uses the agent has in mind
Knight Frank's preferred uses, as listed by EdgeProp, are senior living and care facilities: assisted living, a nursing home, a day care centre, or a training centre for health and medical care. Each of these is subject to planning and regulatory approval. None is a use the buyer acquires as of right with the land.
The zoning is educational, and every care use needs approval
The Jalan Merbok site is zoned "Educational Institution" under the Master Plan 2025, according to EdgeProp Singapore. Assisted living, a nursing home, a day care centre and a health care training centre are the marketing agent's preferred uses, each subject to planning and regulatory approvals.
The four uses are not alternatives so much as parts of one idea. Melvin Chay, interim head of capital markets at Knight Frank Singapore, told EdgeProp that older residents' care needs change over time, and that it is ideal for them to be able to move from one level of support to another without leaving the site. He said this limits the disruption for residents and for their families. In practice that describes a campus where a person might begin in an assisted living apartment and later move to a nursing home bed a short walk away.
Mary Sai, executive director of capital markets at Knight Frank Singapore, told the paper she expects demand for senior living and care assets to grow as the population ages. She presented the site as a chance for investors and operators to build a senior living product that stands apart from what exists today, with the emphasis on care, wellbeing and quality of life.
The plot adjoins a spirituality centre run by Canossa Mission Singapore, a non-profit that EdgeProp describes as the local mission arm of the Canossian Sisters. Knight Frank has built its suggested concept around that neighbour. It proposes a care and community campus that complements the centre, in a setting oriented towards care, wellbeing, reflection and community engagement.
Related readUS large investors bought 2.2% of single-family homes in AugustEdgeProp adds one practical detail: under the agent's suggestion, each use would be operated independently. A buyer would run the care facilities and the spirituality centre would carry on under its own management. The co-location is a matter of setting and shared purpose, not of a joint operation. For a bidder preparing a concept, that neighbour is a given of the site and the proposal has to sit comfortably beside it.
A state-sold precedent: Parry Avenue
There is a clear reference for what private assisted living land sells for and how such a sale is judged. On 29 September 2022 the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the Ministry of Health launched a site at Parry Avenue, in Rosyth Estate near Serangoon North, for a private assisted living development. EdgeProp's report of that launch gave the terms: 12,912.1 sq m, or 138,986 sq ft, on a 60-year lease, with a height limit of five storeys and a maximum gross floor area of 194,581 sq ft.
The state attached conditions on use. At least 60 per cent of the maximum floor area had to go to assisted living, counting both individual units and communal spaces, and at least 20 per cent to health and medical care, including a mandatory 100 nursing home beds. The tender asked for assisted living models offering active ageing activities, housekeeping and regular care assessments that adapt as residents' needs change.
The Ministry of Health's statement of 20 June 2023 explains how the winner was chosen. The sale was a Concept and Price Revenue Tender in two stages. In the first, concept proposals were scored against criteria that included the suitability and innovativeness of the care model and the quality of programmes and services. In the second, the shortlisted proposals were compared on price alone, and the highest bid won. Four concept proposals came in from three tenderers, and all four were shortlisted. The winner was a subsidiary of Perennial Holdings, at S$71,988,000.
Related readHow US rental income is taxed: Schedule E, depreciation and lossesSet against the maximum floor area, that price works out at about S$370 per square foot of buildable space (S$71,988,000 divided by 194,581 sq ft). The figure is a calculation from the two published numbers, and it belongs to a 60-year lease awarded in 2023.
| Feature | Jalan Merbok (2026) | Parry Avenue (2022 to 2023) |
|---|---|---|
| Seller's route | Expression of interest through a marketing agent | Public tender by the state |
| Land area | 94,907 sq ft | 138,986 sq ft |
| Lease | Fresh 103 years | 60 years |
| Use | Zoned educational; care uses preferred, subject to approval | Assisted living and 100 nursing home beds required |
| How bids are judged | Offer and proposed concept, no guide price | Concept first, then highest price |
| Price | Not set | S$71,988,000 |
EdgeProp Singapore, 7 October 2026 and 29 September 2022; Ministry of Health, 20 June 2023.
The comparison has limits that matter to anyone pricing the new site. Jalan Merbok is the smaller plot, at about 68 per cent of Parry Avenue's land area (94,907 sq ft against 138,986 sq ft), but its lease is 43 years longer. Parry Avenue came with its use fixed by the state and its floor area published. Jalan Merbok comes with neither: the care uses still need approval and no floor area has been reported. A bidder at Jalan Merbok carries a planning question that the Parry Avenue tenderers did not.
What the Parry Avenue winner planned to build
The winning concept gives an idea of what a private care campus looks like on paper. EdgeProp reported in June 2023 that Perennial planned 200 assisted living apartments of one or two bedrooms, ranging from 366 sq ft to 666 sq ft, together with a 100-bed nursing home, a wellness clubhouse and a senior care centre. The Ministry of Health described the proposal as a continuum of care that lets residents age in place, with an integrated health and social care hub and communal areas linked to a new neighbourhood park beside the site.
That is the same logic Knight Frank is now applying to Jalan Merbok: several levels of care on one piece of land, so that a move between them is a move across a courtyard. Pua Seck Guan, chief executive and chairman of Perennial Holdings, told EdgeProp in 2023 that the company would create an eldercare and community care model suited to local residents ageing in place and in the community. Lam Chern Woon, head of research and consulting at Edmund Tie, told the paper at the time that the award was a step towards the next stage of maturity for the senior living market in Singapore.
Related readUSA: how a section 1031 like-kind exchange and its deadlines workThe other tenderers show who looks at this kind of land. The Ministry of Health's list shows one company bidding alone and a group of four companies bidding jointly. Perennial itself put in two concept proposals, and EdgeProp reported that its second bid was only 0.1 per cent below its first, and its winning bid about 10.4 per cent above the third-highest.
Public assisted living came first
The private sites follow a public model. EdgeProp's 2022 report traces it to the Community Care Apartments built by the Housing and Development Board, which combine senior-friendly flats with care services that can be stepped up as residents need more help. The first pilot, with 169 flats, was launched in Bukit Batok in February 2021. A second, with 200 apartments, was planned for the Health District in Queenstown.
Those flats were presented as an alternative to a nursing home for seniors who need some help but can still live on their own. The Urban Redevelopment Authority's stated aim for the private version at Parry Avenue was a setting that supports independence and creates opportunities for residents to bond. The Jalan Merbok offer is a further step along the same line, this time through a marketing agent, with no state brief attached.
The ageing figures behind the pitch
EdgeProp's report of 7 October gives the number the marketing rests on: residents aged 65 and above make up 21.6 per cent of Singapore's population. When the Parry Avenue site was launched in 2022, the paper cited the Population in Brief report for a different measure, citizens rather than residents: 18.4 per cent of citizens were aged 65 and above in June 2022, up from 17.6 per cent a year earlier, with a projection of 23.8 per cent, about one in four, by 2030.
The two series count different groups and should not be read as one line. Taken separately, each says the same thing about direction. More than one resident in five is now past 65, and the citizen projection published in 2022 has the share still climbing to the end of the decade.
A long lease and a care concept are on the table at Jalan Merbok. The floor area and the approvals are not.
What comes next
The date already fixed is the close of the exercise, at 3pm on Friday 6 November 2026. By then, interested parties have to put a figure and a concept on paper without a guide price to anchor either.
Several things are not yet public and will decide how the offer is read: the price the owner accepts, if any, the identity of the buyer, the floor area the authorities are prepared to allow, and which of the four preferred uses receive approval. For investors and operators, the outcome would add a further data point alongside the Parry Avenue award of 2023.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
