Singapore’s Good Class Bungalows: the home of choice for tech tycoons like Shi Xu, Anthony Tan and other crazy rich Asians
- Good Class Bungalows, or GCBs, are large, green, rare and ultra-exclusive. With price tags in the tens of millions, they are home to some of the city state’s richest people, from TikTok’s Chew Shou Zi to Secretlab’s Ian Ang
- Luxury home sales are brisk and climbing, propelled – say experts – by Singapore’s safe handling of the coronavirus and geopolitical headwinds such as China’s crackdown on tech
But in the land-scarce island nation, the property asset that really sets apart a “crazy rich Asian” from a merely rich one is the Good Class Bungalow (GCB). These are sprawling homes set in their own expanses of greenery, whose limited numbers and vast price tags make them the exclusive preserve of only the wealthiest of the wealthy.
To be classed as a GCB, the property’s plot of land must be at least 1,400 square metres while the building itself must occupy less than 40 per cent of this space and be limited to two storeys. GCBs are located in just 39 gazetted areas in Singapore, many nestled in the central area, and there are only about 2,800 in total, making up just 3.8 per cent of all completed landed houses.
Then there is the cost. While a luxury condominium might set you back millions of dollars, GCBs are in the tens of millions.
Still, sales this year have been brisk and continue to climb.
According to research by Knight Frank and Arcadia Consulting, in the first half of 2021, 37 GCBs changed hands to the tune of S$1.2 billion (US$1.15 billion). This compares to the 44 GCBs sold last year for S$1.09 billion and 40 sold in 2019 for S$816.6 million, as found by ERA Realty’s head of research Nicholas Mak.
Not even the coronavirus can slow things down. Figures from boutique real estate advisory and brokerage firm Arcadia Consulting show there were more GCB sales in the six quarters since the start of the pandemic than in the previous six quarters.