Legenda @ Joo Chiat, a leasehold boutique condominium, recorded the strongest two-bedroom returns across Aljunied, Paya Lebar and Eunos over the past decade: an average 37.44% return on investment and S$380,600 profit per unit (Stacked Homes, July 2026). It is not the newest project in the corridor, nor the largest. That is the point.
The result is worth understanding because it cuts against a common assumption, that scale and freshness carry a two-bedder. In this cluster, over this period, the opposite held. The factors behind the outperformance are ones you can check before you commit to a loan.
What actually drove the return
Four things separate a strong resale performer from an average one, and they compound.
Development size. Boutique projects carry fewer competing units. When you sell, you are not queuing behind 40 identical two-bedders listed in the same quarter. Scarcity within a single development protects your exit price in a way a 700-unit launch cannot. This is the mechanism most buyers underweight, because a large development feels safer on the way in.
Entry price. ROI is a fraction, and the denominator matters as much as the numerator. A lower absolute entry price on a leasehold boutique unit means the same dollar gain reads as a larger percentage. Legenda's returns are partly a story about what buyers paid to get in, not only what they sold for.
Unit mix and size. A well-proportioned two-bedder in a small development competes for a specific, steady pool of buyers: couples, small families, investors chasing rental yield near Paya Lebar and the East Coast. Efficient layouts that avoid wasted space per square foot tend to hold their psf better on resale.
Supply scarcity in the surrounding area. New leasehold supply in the immediate Joo Chiat and Katong pocket has been limited, which supports existing stock. When nearby launches are frequent, they reset buyer expectations on price. When they are rare, older projects capture demand that has nowhere else to go.
None of these is a secret. What the Legenda case shows is how they stack when they align in one project.
What this means if you are financing a two-bedder in the corridor
The temptation is to read "37.44% ROI" and search for the next Legenda. That is the wrong lesson. Past outperformance in one development does not forecast the next one, and a decade of returns is a decade of specific conditions that will not repeat identically.
The useful lesson is about how you size your loan and read a project before you sign. Four checks are worth doing before you commit.
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Compare entry price to the cluster, not the headline psf. If a two-bedder is priced at a premium to comparable resale units nearby, your ROI has to work harder just to break even against the ones that were cheaper going in. Cheaper entry is not automatically better, but it changes the maths, and the maths is what determines your equity in year five or ten.
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Count the competing supply, inside the development and around it. Count the two-bedders in the project. Look at what is launching within a kilometre over the next two to three years. Every new launch that overlaps with your eventual sale is a competitor for the same buyer.
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Size the loan against the exit, not only the entry. A two-bedder you may sell within the decade is a different financing decision from a long-hold home. If resale value is central to the purchase, a shorter lock-in and a package you can refinance out of cleanly matters more than shaving a few basis points off the initial rate. You want the flexibility to move when the window opens, without a penalty eating into the gain.
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Factor LTV into your net return. Financing a lower-entry unit at the same 75% LTV means a smaller absolute loan and lower interest cost over the hold, which flows straight into net profit on exit. The cheaper entry that boosts the ROI percentage also lightens the financing you carry to get there.
The honest caveat
Boutique developments cut both ways. Fewer units mean thinner transaction data, so a single distressed sale can move the reported average, and price discovery is slower when few units change hands in a given year. Smaller developments can also carry higher maintenance costs per unit, since fixed estate expenses are split across fewer owners. A strong ROI does not erase these frictions; it is a return earned in exchange for accepting them.
Legenda @ Joo Chiat is a case study, not a template. Read it for the mechanism, small size, disciplined entry price, efficient layouts, scarce surrounding supply, then test any two-bedder you are considering against those four questions before you decide how much to borrow against it.
Sarah Chen
