D10's $3.16M Average Is a Detached-House Story. Semi-Detached Buyers Are Reading the Wrong Number.

Singapore's most-traded landed district has 249 transactions on record and an average profit of $3.16M — no other district comes close on both volume and returns. But that number is doing something subtle and important: it is averaging three completely different markets into one figure, and the one driving the headline represents less than a third of all D10 transactions.

This article tests whether D10's dominance is a district effect — something that applies across all landed types — or whether it is really a detached-house story that the district label happens to carry.

The key finding: D10 detached houses averaged $11.55M in known profit on exits around $20M, held for 14.5 years. D10 semi-detached houses averaged $3.81M on exits around $8.75M, held for 9.5 years. The district average of $3.16M sits between them — misleading in both directions.

D10 Is Three Different Markets in One Postcode

Start with the raw split. These are known-profit rows only — transactions where both an entry price and exit price are on record. Rows where profit data is unavailable are excluded rather than treated as zero.

The detached segment is not modestly ahead of semi-detached. It is three times larger in known profit. And it represents only 71 of 249 D10 transactions — 28.5% of the market by count. Semi-detached and terrace make up the other 71.5%.

A buyer purchasing a D10 semi-detached house is buying into the $3.81M known-profit cohort. Not the $11.55M headline. The district label does not change which pool you are in.

The national context sharpens this further. Across all districts, detached houses average $3.0M in profit. D10 detached average $11.55M — 3.9 times the national figure. Semi-detached nationally average $1.74M; D10 semi-detached at $3.81M is 2.2 times that. D10 is exceptional across all types — but the degree of exceptionalism is not evenly distributed.

The detached premium over national average is four times larger than the semi-detached premium. If the article stopped here, the verdict would be simple: D10 is a detached-house story, semi-detached buyers get a meaningful but much smaller premium, and the headline average misleads both groups.

But the D11 comparison complicates this — and it is worth working through carefully.

D11's Semi-Detached Outperform D10's — Per Transaction

D11 (Novena, Thomson, Watten) has 139 total transactions on record and a known-profit average of $4.65M across 65 rows. That is already higher than D10's blended summary figure of $3.16M. But the type-level comparison is what matters.

D11 semi-detached owners averaged $4.04M in known profit against D10 semi-detached owners averaging $3.81M. D11 wins on a per-transaction basis — by about $240,000.

But the hold periods are not the same. D11 semi-detached owners held for 14.1 years on average. D10 semi-detached owners held for 9.5 years. Those are not comparable holding experiences.

The annualised figures flip the result entirely:

• D10 semi-detached: $3,805,840 ÷ 9.5 years = $401,000 per year held
• D11 semi-detached: $4,044,996 ÷ 14.1 years = $287,000 per year held

D10 semi-detached generated more profit per year than D11 semi-detached — by a meaningful margin. The D11 per-transaction advantage is real, but it requires nearly five additional years of holding to achieve it. A D10 semi-detached owner who held as long as D11 owners held would likely close that gap, and potentially exceed it.

This is not a verdict on which district is better for semi-detached buyers. It is a finding that the comparison depends entirely on how you measure: per transaction or per year held. Both figures are legitimate. Neither tells the full story alone.

The D11 sample is also thinner — 28 known-profit rows against D10's 89. D11's higher per-transaction figure may reflect a shallower, more selective transaction pool where lower-value exits are underrepresented. D10's larger sample almost certainly captures a wider range of street quality, including the lower end.

The Hold Period the Summary Table Cannot Explain

One figure in the data deserves a brief note. The summary table shows D10 with a median hold of around 3 years. The type-level figures tell a completely different story: detached at 14.5 years, semi-detached at 9.5 years, terrace at 8.4 years. None of the three type-level figures is close to 3 years.

The most likely explanation is a composition artefact — the summary computation handles rows without profit data differently from the type-level analysis. Regardless of cause, the type-level hold figures are the reliable ones. The 3-year summary figure is not the experience of a typical D10 landed buyer.

The national hold-period data is relevant here. Across all landed property in Singapore, owners who hold 10 or more years average $3.41M in profit with a 99% win rate. D10 detached at 14.5 years and $11.55M in known profit is consistent with this pattern. The outsized returns are partly a function of extreme hold duration — though district quality clearly amplifies the outcome beyond what hold period alone would predict, given that the national 10-year average is $3.41M and D10 detached is $11.55M.

The Street Address Matters More Than the District Label

The internal range within D10 is wider than the gap between D10 and most other districts. These are all D10 addresses:

The Duchess/Namly cluster — Duchess Avenue, Duchess Road, Namly Avenue, Grove Drive — produces known profits between $5.7M and $8.44M. These are predominantly detached houses with typical exit prices between $8.88M and $11.83M. Holland Grove View and King's Drive, both with typical prices around $4M–$4.4M, produce known profits under $1.5M.

The gap between Duchess Avenue ($8.44M known profit) and Holland Grove View ($1.40M) is $7.04M — wider than the spread between D10's blended average and most other districts in the dataset.

The land PSF difference within D10 alone is $991 per square foot: Namly Avenue at $2,742 PSF against King's Drive at $1,751 PSF. For context, all PSF figures here are land area PSF — not comparable to strata floor-area PSF used in condo transactions.

The terrace segment within D10 shows the same pattern, with Grove Drive averaging $7.55M in known profit and Namly Place averaging $1.15M. Most of these streets have only 2–4 transactions, so treat them as directional rather than definitive — but the direction is consistent across enough streets to be meaningful.

The implication for a buyer entering D10 is that the district label narrows the search, but it does not predict the outcome. Two D10 landed addresses can differ by $7M in known profit. The street cluster — and the property type it corresponds to — is doing the work the district label is getting credit for.

What D10's Real Structural Edge Actually Is

D10's advantage over every other district is not simply profit magnitude. It is the combination of profit magnitude and transaction depth. D3 (Queenstown/Tiong Bahru) shows an average profit of $4.69M — higher than D10's blended figure — but on only 6 transactions. One or two large detached exits can produce that average; it is not a structural benchmark.

D15 (Katong, Joo Chiat, Siglap) has 455 transactions — nearly twice D10's volume — but averages $1.86M in profit. D11 has higher known-profit averages but only 139 transactions and a shallower resale pool. D10's 249 transactions at $3.16M blended is the only district in Singapore combining top-3 profit with the transaction depth to make that average meaningful.

For a semi-detached buyer also considering D11: D11 offers a slightly higher per-transaction profit outcome (28 known rows at $4.04M vs D10's 89 at $3.81M), but D11 carries a shallower market with fewer comparable transactions to sell into, and the profit advantage disappears when measured per year held. D21 (Upper Bukit Timah, Clementi Park area) — geographically adjacent to D10 — offers a lower entry point (typical price $6.08M, land PSF $1,998 vs D10's $2,462) but D21 detached averaged $3.4M in profit on 25 transactions, roughly 60% of D10 detached performance.

D4 (Sentosa) sits at the opposite end. Twelve landed transactions on record, average profit -$616,094, typical hold 1.1 years. Paradise Island alone averaged -$7,898,000 on one transaction. The Sentosa loss pattern extends into condominium resale as well — not a data artefact.

What the Data Supports and Where It Does Not Settle

D10 is the dominant landed district in Singapore — that holds. The volume and profit combination is real, and the district's performance above national averages is real across all three property types.

But the investigation produces a more complicated answer than the headline suggests.

For detached houses on a 14+ year hold, D10 is exceptional by a wide margin — $11.55M in known profit against a national detached average of $3.0M. The district label is doing genuine work here.

For semi-detached houses, the picture splits. D11 outperforms D10 on a per-transaction basis ($4.04M vs $3.81M). D10 outperforms D11 on a per-year-held basis ($401k/yr vs $287k/yr). Both figures are real; they measure different things. Which matters more depends on how long a buyer plans to hold — and that is not something the district comparison can resolve.

For terrace houses, the street address within D10 predicts the outcome better than the district label. The internal range is $6.4M on known profit — wider than the gap between D10 and most other districts. A buyer relying on "D10 terrace" as a return expectation is working with a number that conceals more than it reveals.

The short version: D10 is the right answer if you are buying detached and holding long. For semi-detached buyers weighing D10 against D11, the data does not produce a clear winner — it produces two different correct answers depending on which holding period you use as your benchmark. That is an honest result, and the district label alone was never going to resolve it.