Every parent in Singapore knows the 1km rule matters for Primary One balloting. Fewer have seen what it does to property prices, and the four-year numbers are larger than most would guess.
Between the first half of 2022 and the first half of 2026, median resale condo prices within a kilometre of Rosyth School rose 46.8%. Condos across District 19 as a whole rose 30.6% over the same period — a gap of 16.2 percentage points, on the same clock, in the same district.
The pattern repeats across the schools studied, if less dramatically. Nan Chiau Primary in Sengkang: 34.8% against District 19's 30.6%. Maris Stella High in Toa Payoh: 31.4% against 25.7%. Pei Hwa Presbyterian: 31.2% against District 21's 27.3%. Catholic High in Bishan: 29.6% against 25.1%. Tao Nan in Marine Parade: 24.1% against 21.4%. Nanyang Primary in Bukit Timah: 18.2% against District 11's 12.4%.
**Two forces, pushing the same way**
The demand side changed in 2022, when more Primary One places were allocated to Phase 2C — the open phase for families with no alumni or volunteer connection to the school. The intent was to widen access. The effect was to make the queue longer at almost every phase: families who previously would not have tried now do, and families who once felt safe in the alumni or volunteer phases increasingly find themselves balloting. When balloting gets tighter, living inside the 1km ring stops being an advantage and starts being a requirement.
The supply side did something more dramatic. New homes sold within 1km of these schools fell from 444 in 1H2022 to 22 in 1H2026. That is not a market cooling; that is a market with nothing to sell. Where new stock does appear, it prices accordingly — new condo prices near Nan Hua Primary went from a median $1,785 psf in 1H2022 to $2,255 psf in 1H2026.
**Where the premium is weaker than it looks**
Three cautions, because a premium that everyone knows about is usually already in the price.
The first is that you are buying the distance, not the place. If the reason for the purchase is a ballot, the value of the address is concentrated in a few years, and the exit is to the next family doing the same thing. That is a real buyer pool, but a narrow one, and it prices the property against a use rather than against the market.
The second is that the 1km ring is a hard edge. A property at 1.1km carries very little of the premium of one at 0.9km, and the boundary is measured to a point, not to a neighbourhood. Buying "near" a school without checking the actual measured distance is one of the more expensive mistakes available in this market.
The third is policy. The premiums above accumulated under one set of admission rules, and admission rules change — the Gifted Education Programme's elective is being removed next year, and the official line remains that every school is a good school. Perceptions have not moved so far. But a premium built on an allocation rule is exposed to that rule in a way a premium built on an MRT station is not.
**The question worth answering first**
If the school is genuinely the reason for the move, the numbers above say the premium is real and has been growing. If the school is a justification for a purchase you wanted to make anyway, be honest about that, because you will pay the premium either way and only one of those cases gets the value back.
Either way the arithmetic is the same as any other purchase: what it costs in duty, what you can borrow against your income and age, and what the monthly figure looks like when the rate resets. The school decides the postcode. It does not change the affordability test.