About Lucas Lim
Why lucaslim.blog exists, how Coalwood works, and how Lucas Lim uses Singapore condo data to show the thinking behind property recommendations.
I write Singapore property analysis for buyers who want to see the thinking before the recommendation.
Most property advice is delivered as a pitch. A polished deck. A confident line. A selective comparison. Sometimes useful information is held back until the sales conversation starts.
This site is my attempt to do the opposite.
I am Lucas Lim, a Singapore property advisor. I use POLARIS, my research and writing system, to study Singapore private property through resale transactions, asking-price data, URA data, and buyer-facing frameworks.
The goal is simple: show the work in public so you can judge the reasoning for yourself.
I am honestly not the slickest salesperson. So consider this body of work my pitch.
Why I Built This
Too many buyers are asked to make million-dollar decisions without seeing enough of the thinking behind the recommendation.
A project is presented as undervalued, but the comparison set is not shown. A unit is described as rare, but the buyer pool is not discussed. A new launch is framed as a safe entry, but nobody explains what it is expensive compared with. A resale unit looks cheap on PSF, but the reason it stays cheap is left unsaid.
I wanted a place where the working is visible.
That means showing the tables, the trade-offs, the doubts, and the parts where the answer is not neat. Sometimes the data supports the common belief. Sometimes it breaks it. Either way, I would rather show you the reasoning than ask you to trust a polished conclusion.
What POLARIS Looks At
POLARIS is the research engine behind this site.
It helps me look at Singapore private property through several lenses:
- current new launch asking prices
- current resale asking prices
- completed resale transactions
- district and project resale performance
- win rates, losses, holding periods, and buyer outcomes
- URA regional price indices
- large-format homes in District 9 and District 10
- price-to-index ratio as one way to test whether an entry price looks stretched
The most important distinction is this: asking prices are not completed transactions.
When I write current buyer reference pages, such as cheapest 4-bedroom resale condos or largest 5-bedroom homes in a district, those are based on asking-price data available in my database at the time of writing. They are useful for shortlisting and market context, but availability and pricing can change.
When I write resale performance articles, those are based on completed transactions and historical outcomes. Those are better for studying what actually happened to buyers and sellers.
Both are useful. They answer different questions.
How To Read The Work
There are two kinds of articles on this site.
The first kind is practical reference work. These are the tables: cheapest units, lowest PSF, largest homes, freehold options, district shortlists, and price-to-index ratio rankings. They are meant to help buyers quickly understand what is available and what the market is asking.
The second kind is deeper analysis. These articles test property beliefs against the data. Does freehold always outperform leasehold? Do MRT condos justify the premium? Can holding long enough save a bad entry price? Why do some large-format homes make money while others become very hard to exit?
The reference articles help you find options.
The deeper articles help you think about those options.
Data is not magic. It does not replace judgment, taste, negotiation, financing, or the reality of what a family actually needs. But it does make the conversation more honest. It gives us better questions to ask before we commit to a large property decision.
A Useful Starting Point
One framework I use often is the price-to-index ratio.
The idea is simple: a property price is not meaningful by itself. The question is always, expensive compared to what?
The price-to-index ratio compares entry PSF against the URA regional non-landed price index at the time of purchase. It is not a perfect rule and it is not a buy/sell signal. It is a stress reading. It helps ask whether a buyer is paying a stretched price relative to where the wider market cycle already is.
I explained the framework here: How To Tell If A New Launch Is Overpriced.
Who This Is For
This site is mainly for serious private-property buyers who want to think more clearly before acting.
It is especially useful if you are looking at:
- 4-bedroom and 5-bedroom condos
- large-format resale homes
- District 9 and District 10 private homes
- high-quantum family homes
- new launch versus resale alternatives
- homes where the buyer pool may be thin
- properties where the pitch sounds good, but you want to see the evidence
Long term, I am building a buyer base around this exact category of homes. That matters because some high-value homes do not have a simple pricing problem. They have a buyer-pool and distribution problem.
If I can understand what serious buyers are comparing, and if I can reach those buyers with useful data-backed work, I can be more useful to both buyers and sellers.
Work With Me
If this way of thinking is useful to you, message me.
You do not need to have everything figured out. You may be comparing new launch and resale. You may be wondering whether a large unit is genuinely rare or just hard to exit. You may be trying to understand whether a D9 or D10 home is worth the premium. Or you may simply want someone to show you the working before making a recommendation.
I can help you look at the options, the trade-offs, and the data behind the decision.