Touring Tai Hwan Estate: Affordable freehold landed living from $3.6m in District 19

If you're not familiar with the area, Tai Hwan is basically the estate to the West of Li Hwan. It is separated from Li Hwan by the road Jalan Pacheli, so it enjoys the same amenities as Li Hwan: Proximity to Serangoon Gardens and Nex Mall.

Tai Hwan actually covers a bigger area than the Li Hwan estate.

However, as you can see above, a big part of the Tai Hwan estate is a green space (zoned as a park), which is one of the reasons I prefer Tai Hwan to Li Hwan. (Li Hwan is much more built-up.) Hence, despite the houses at Li Hwan being significantly bigger (just look at the size of the individual plots on the map above) the Tai Hwan estate feels more spacious.

Secondly, the Tai Hwan estate consists of mainly small streets, so you don't get a lot of traffic. As a result, the area feels quiet and peaceful. In contrast, Li Hwan Drive is a very busy road as drivers can use it to get to Serangoon Gardens up North, and the Li Hwan side feels much too bustling for me. I can imagine going for an evening walk around Tai Hwan, but not Li Hwan, despite the two being separated by just one road!

And the estate is pretty quiet. Apart from Tai Hwan Crescent, which borders Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, we don't hear loud traffic noises in the estate.

Although it is all terrace houses here, the road was pretty clear and it was not difficult to find street parking or to drive through it. I didn't see anyone having to use bins to reserve car park lots!

On this side of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, right in front of Tai Hwan Crescent is a bus stop which serves these buses: 22, 24, 45, 53, 58, 133, 135, 136, 156, 159, 853 and 853M.

I like how the residents here are keen gardeners and have prettied up the sidewalks with their plants, but not to the extent that it looks like a dengue trap, as I've seen in some estates.

On the note of dengue, someone left a comment about the Li Hwan area being a well-known dengue cluster area. When I googled, I couldn't find any information about dengue at Li Hwan, but I did find news about a 2019 dengue cluster at Tai Hwan Crescent/Avenue.

As mentioned, Tai Hwan Crescent and Tai Hwan Drive form a loop road.

The houses are mostly terraces - i.e. lower quantum needed to enter the market/more accessible for people looking to upgrade. But there are one or two larger properties too.

Note: Indeed the last house that sold at Tai Hwan Drive went for $3.7 million in February 2023 to someone with an HDB address (i.e. upgrading.) If you're curious, the person who sold it made almost $2.5 million profit after buying the house in 2007 (so 7.3 per cent annualised profit.)

The vast majority of the houses are in their original condition.

A reader did comment on the Li Hwan article saying that the houses in the area were too old. (The ones at Li Hwan actually look more recently constructed than the ones at Tai Hwan!) However, this also represents an opportunity to renovate the house to your preferences (assuming the asking price reflects the condition of the house that is!)

Moreover, to be fair, I don't think the houses are so old that they are completely unsalvageable. (For example, the 92 units at Tai Hwan Park (Tai Hwan Crescent/Drive/Grove) were built in 1990. Do note that some have a split floor inside, characteristic of that era.)

I viewed a few landed houses in the Hillview area that were in such vintage condition, the entire house only had two very small toilets in the entire house (one per floor)- and one was the helper's toilet! Now that would be a house that would make me hesitate, especially if you have a larger family. (Unless you don't mind substantial renovation, that is.)

Although there is a pavement in front of each house, so you could probably keep your gate open and park two (small ones) in a row.

Random fact: Although these streets are called Tai Hwan Crescent/Drive, you can not drive through to the main part of the Tai Hwan estate. Instead, they're connected to Golden Hill Landed estate. To drive to the rest of the Tai Hwan estate, you'll need to drive out onto Ang Mo Kio 1 and turn into Li Hwan Drive.

There is, however, pedestrian access to the rest of Tai Hwan estate via a small path that leads onto Tai Hwan Grove. (This allows residents easy access to Tai Hwan park and playground.)

And now for the million-dollar shot.

This is why I like this estate even though the houses are old. Look at how elevated this row of houses is, and what an unblocked view it has!

Although some may say living next to the playground can be noisy, as you can see from the photo above, there is quite a good distance between the houses and the playground, such that I can't capture both in the same photo frame.

This is just how much green space there is around the playground.

Unfortunately, the actual playground itself isn't anything out of the ordinary. (Taking the photo from a distance as there are kids playing.) But, honestly, having so much space to run around safely is invaluable for kids!

Another photo to show you how far the neighbouring houses are from the playground.

I think we've seen enough of the park now so let's move on to the houses! As you can see above, the terrace houses are quite well-spaced as there are pretty wide pedestrian paths between some of them.

Last look back at the playground.

A closer look at the properties. The green house here looks like it pre-dates the 90s?

This corner terrace is huge! (And new-ish looking.)

As with Tai Hwan Drive/Crescent, the other roads in the Tai Hwan estate are also very broad and empty!

Turning on to Tai Hwan Heights which, as you can see, stands slightly above an empty plot of land.

Look at all that open green space! Added to the park we saw earlier, Tai Hwan estate is one of the more open landed estates that I've seen.

More empty green land!

I may have gone overboard with the number of photos of the empty land, but it's such a rarity in landed estates in Singapore that I couldn't resist! There are some high-rise buildings but they are really far away (squint and you'll see them behind the trees.)

Unfortunately, the majority of the empty land is zoned residential so eventually something will pop up on it. (The part to the North is zoned for sports and recreation, so should stay relatively low-rise, hopefully.) The silver lining on the cloud is that the plot ratio for the residential land is 1.4, so there should not be very tall buildings blocking the wind flow of these houses.

Walk to the end of the road and you see this narrow path, which leads to Burghley Drive, where the bigger houses are located. The tennis court above is what has been zoned sports and recreation I assume.

The road turns right and here we find larger houses.

Still relatively uncluttered and quiet roads.

First renovation project I've seen on this entire walkabout! I usually see a lot more during my walkabout!

Off this part of Tai Hwan Heights are several short cul-de-sacs which are upward-sloping.

Standing along Tai Hwan Heights and looking up the cul-de-sac, this is what you see. (The next row of houses, Burghley Drive, is on higher land.)

And if you look in the opposite direction, you see Tai Hwan Place, another (longer) cul-de-sac.

Followed by Tai Hwan Avenue, which leads back to Tai Hwan Terrace (where the park/playground is.)

Have you noticed how every single road in Tai Hwan estate has no parking issues? (At least not during my two visits.)

Eventually, we reach Jalan Pacheli, which is the end of the Tai Hwan estate. From here, we can spot CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel.

We've now reached the end of the tour. How did you find the estate? Did you find the ample green space as appealing as I did? Let me know in the comments what you think makes a landed property which offers a good quality of life!

ALSO READ: A detailed tour of Joo Chiat and Katong in 60 photos: Here's why this charming neighbourhood is so popular

This article was first published in Stackedhomes.