Singapore Has Too Little Land. Could It Still Build Too Many Homes?
Updated: Jul 14
Singapore is one of the few countries where two apparently contradictory statements can both be true:
We need more homes. And one day, we may have fewer people to occupy them.
That contradiction sits quietly behind almost every debate about forests, golf courses, ageing estates and future housing supply. It is also why the petitions concerning Maju Forest and Gillman Barracks are more interesting than simple arguments between development and conservation.
The real question is not whether Singapore needs housing today.
The harder question is whether the land decisions we make today will still look sensible in 20, 30 or 50 years, particularly if Singapore ages faster than expected and migration does not fully compensate for the decline in local births.
Land may remain scarce. Demand for every type of building may not.
Why Maju Forest and Gillman Barracks are not merely debates about trees
In July 2026, plans were announced to clear approximately 15 hectares of the 23-hectare Maju Forest area in Clementi for future public housing. About eight hectares are intended to be retained as a wildlife refuge and nature corridor.
The Save Maju Forest petition does not simply argue that no homes should be built. It asks whether Singapore can deliver the housing while making greater use of previously developed land, renewing ageing developments and reducing the amount of forest that must be cleared.
The Save Gillman Barracks and Gillman Forest petition makes a related but distinct argument. It points to the substantial housing already planned within the nearby Greater Southern Waterfront, including approximately 9,000 homes at the former Keppel Club, and asks whether Gillman Barracks and its surrounding forest should instead remain a heritage, lifestyle, recreational and green enclave serving the larger district.
Both petitions accept that Singapore needs homes. What they challenge is the assumption that forested or semi-natural land must be the first answer when previously developed land, urban-renewal opportunities and major housing pipelines may already exist nearby.
Whether one agrees with every proposal or calculation in the petitions is secondary.
Together, they raise an intelligent planning question:
When development is reversible but environmental loss is not, should we demand a higher level of certainty before consuming undeveloped land?
A housing block can eventually be redeveloped.
A planning designation can be changed.
An old estate can be intensified.
A mature ecological system is rather less cooperative. It cannot be reconstructed simply because someone later discovers that the original population forecast was too optimistic.
Singapore's demographic forecast has already changed
According to SingStat's latest births and fertility data, Singapore's resident total fertility rate fell to 0.87 in 2025, down from 0.97 the year before. Citizen births fell by 10.8% to 26,071.
At the same time, official population data shows that 20.7% of citizens were aged 65 and above in 2025. That proportion is projected to reach approximately 23.9% by 2030, meaning almost one in four citizens could be aged 65 or older.
The Government has stated that, without additional measures, the citizen population could begin shrinking in the early 2040s. A 2026 Committee of Supply speech also made clear that carefully managed immigration will be needed to support the local population and workforce.
I explored the property implications more fully in my recent article, Singapore's Ageing Population Could Hurt Homes More Than Factories.
The broad point was simple: ageing and low fertility do not affect every category of property equally.
Residential demand is closely connected to population growth, marriages, household formation and immigration.
Industrial demand is driven more directly by production, logistics, food processing, engineering, technology, storage, supply chains and business activity.
That difference becomes highly relevant when we decide what Singapore's limited land should be used for.
A land-scarce country can still suffer from oversupply
There is a common assumption in Singapore property: land is scarce, therefore property can never be oversupplied.
But scarcity of land does not automatically mean scarcity of every building type.
Monaco has scarce land. It could still build too many cinemas. Hong Kong has scarce land. It could still have too much retail space in the wrong location. Singapore has scarce land. It could theoretically produce more homes than future households need, particularly within certain locations, sizes or market segments.
Oversupply does not require an empty country. It only requires supply to grow faster than effective demand.
That could mean too many large family homes relative to smaller households. It could mean housing in locations that an older population finds inconvenient. It could mean private units priced beyond what the next generation can afford. It could mean an islandwide market that remains stable while certain districts or property types struggle.
The more plausible long-term risk is therefore not thousands of completely abandoned Singapore homes. It is mismatch: too much of one product, too little of another, and homes designed for yesterday's household structure rather than tomorrow's.
Migration is the largest swing factor
According to Population.gov.sg, Singapore's total population reached 6.11 million in June 2025, but the increase was mainly supported by growth in the non-resident population.
Migration can support employment, economic activity, household formation and rental demand. It is one reason Singapore's residential market may remain resilient for much longer than birth statistics alone would suggest.
But migration cannot be treated as an automatic number inserted into a property spreadsheet.
New residents need infrastructure, transport, healthcare, schools and social integration. Immigration policy is influenced by economic requirements as well as social and political considerations.
There is also a difference between people who are temporarily present and households that create lasting residential demand.
A construction worker supporting an infrastructure cycle contributes to the population, but does not create the same housing demand as a family buying a home for the next 20 years. An international executive on a three-year posting affects the rental market differently from a new citizen intending to remain permanently.
So the question is not merely how many people Singapore will have. It is who those people will be, how long they will remain, what type of housing they will need and whether their arrival will keep pace with the housing being planned.
If migration remains strong, future residential supply may be absorbed. If it slows while births remain extremely low, the calculation changes.
The petitions contain a powerful planning idea
The strongest idea connecting the two petitions is not "stop building".
It is build more deliberately.
The Maju Forest petition advances the principle of brownfield before greenfield: make greater use of land that has already been developed before consuming land that cannot easily be restored.
The Gillman Barracks petition adds another dimension. Before adding another residential parcel, examine the housing capacity already planned in the surrounding area and consider whether preserving a green, historic and recreational enclave might create greater long-term value for the residents who will eventually live around it.
That principle makes sense in a country where every hectare carries an opportunity cost.
Older low-density housing can be rebuilt more efficiently. Obsolete buildings can be redeveloped. Underused institutional sites can be reviewed. Some golf-course land can eventually serve a wider public purpose. Commercial districts can become more mixed-use, as Singapore is already doing in parts of the city.
One element of the Maju Forest petition, however, deserves closer scrutiny. It includes ageing industrial land among the possible brownfield alternatives.
Brownfield-first is a sensible planning principle. But it must not quietly become industry-last.
Industrial land is not simply a reserve for more homes
An old industrial estate may look inefficient when judged only by plot ratio or appearance: low buildings, large yards, heavy-vehicle access and practical roofs rather than architectural showpieces.
From a residential planning perspective, it may appear to be a development opportunity.
But industrial space is not merely empty land with factories sitting on it. It is economic infrastructure.
Businesses need suitable zoning, loading access, road capacity, power, ventilation, floor loading, pollution buffers and proximity to suppliers, ports, airports and labour.
A food factory cannot be placed beneath an ordinary condominium. A heavy engineering operator cannot casually relocate into an office tower. A logistics company cannot run its distribution network from whichever vacant building happens to be available.
Industrial uses often need to be clustered because the surrounding infrastructure, environmental controls and transport networks have been planned around them.
URA's long-term planning material on attractive job nodes continues to recognise commercial, business park and industrial nodes as essential to supporting Singapore's economy and employment. It is also studying how older industrial estates can be renewed for new economic needs rather than simply removed.
This is an important distinction.
Residential land is scarce, but the Government is expected to maintain a continuing housing pipeline because shelter is a basic national need.
The pool of investable commercial and industrial property is much narrower. Freehold industrial property is narrower still.
Why industrial scarcity may be more durable
Housing can be intensified across many parts of Singapore.
Older estates can be rebuilt taller. Mixed-use projects can incorporate residential units. Former golf courses can be repurposed. New towns can be planned around MRT lines. Parts of the CBD can gradually gain more residents.
Commercial space can also be stacked vertically and incorporated into mixed developments.
Industrial property faces tighter planning and operational constraints.
It is not only a question of whether a building fits on the site. It must function there.
Can heavy vehicles reach it?
Is the electrical capacity sufficient?
Can machinery be installed?
Are environmental buffers required?
Can goods move efficiently?
Will nearby residents object to noise, smell, traffic or operating hours?
These constraints make genuinely functional industrial land harder to reproduce than an ordinary residential parcel.
This was the argument behind my article, The Strange Reason Some "Boring" Industrial Properties Become Excellent Investments.
The operator is not buying a view. The operator is buying productivity.
And because suitable industrial space solves an operational problem, tenants can be relatively sticky. Moving a family from one condominium to another is inconvenient. Moving machinery, licences, cold rooms, production lines, inventory and an entire supply chain can be financially painful.
The best property may be the one that survives more futures
Long-term investing is not about predicting one perfect future. It is about owning assets that remain useful across several plausible futures.
In the first scenario, Singapore's population continues growing through strong migration. Homes are needed, but so are workplaces, warehouses, food factories, data infrastructure and logistics facilities.
In the second, population growth slows but the economy continues expanding through productivity, automation and higher-value manufacturing. Residential demand becomes more selective, while modern industrial space becomes more important.
In the third, the citizen population begins declining and immigration remains restrained. Housing demand faces greater pressure, but Singapore must still maintain production, food security, healthcare supply chains, technology infrastructure and regional trade capabilities.
Selected industrial assets can remain relevant under all three scenarios.
That does not mean every factory unit is a good investment.
A poorly located industrial property with a short lease, weak specifications, awkward access and no obvious tenant base can perform badly regardless of land scarcity.
As I discussed in Why the Warehouse Floor May Become the Most Important Part of Industrial Property in Singapore, the future value of industrial property will increasingly depend on what businesses can actually do inside it.
Scarcity helps. Usefulness is what converts scarcity into value.
Could Singapore eventually have too many homes?
Yes, it is possible.
It is not inevitable, and it is unlikely to be an immediate islandwide problem.
Housing demand could remain supported by immigration, smaller households, redevelopment needs, wealth inflows and Singapore's continued attractiveness as a place to live and work.
But it would be complacent to assume that permanent land scarcity makes residential oversupply mathematically impossible.
The risk becomes more credible when housing plans stretch decades into the future while fertility remains below one child per woman and citizen population growth becomes increasingly dependent on migration.
This is why debates such as Maju Forest matter.
They force us to think beyond the next launch, the next ballot exercise or the next election cycle.
Once a forest is cleared, Singapore has exercised that land option permanently.
Before doing so, the public deserves confidence that the demand being planned for is not merely based on yesterday's population assumptions.
My view
Singapore will always face a struggle over land.
Homes will compete with nature.
Industrial will compete with housing.
Transport will compete with recreation.
Future generations will inherit whatever trade-offs the current generation decides were necessary.
The Maju Forest petition is valuable because it asks whether we are exhausting irreversible land before fully using land that has already been developed.
But the same logic should protect strategically important commercial and industrial land too.
Not every ageing factory estate is obsolete. Not every low-rise industrial building is inefficient. And not every hectare converted into housing necessarily creates greater long-term value.
For investors, this leads me to a clear conclusion.
Selected commercial and especially industrial properties may offer one of Singapore's strongest long-term scarcity stories, precisely because they are supported by both limited land and continuing economic utility.
Residential property needs households. Industrial property needs activity.
Singapore may eventually have fewer locally born households. But if it intends to remain economically relevant, it cannot afford to run out of productive activity.
The most valuable land may therefore not be the land where the most people can sleep. It may be the land that allows the country to keep working.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Singapore likely to face a housing oversupply?
An islandwide oversupply is not inevitable, particularly if immigration and household formation remain strong. The more realistic risk is an uneven mismatch, with excess supply in certain locations or housing segments while demand remains healthy elsewhere.
How does Singapore's ageing population affect property demand?
Ageing and low fertility affect residential property most directly because housing demand depends on population and household formation. Commercial and industrial demand is more closely tied to employment, trade, production, logistics and business activity.
Why is industrial property considered scarce in Singapore?
Industrial property must meet specific zoning, access, infrastructure and environmental requirements. It cannot be placed anywhere, and much of Singapore's industrial stock is leasehold. Freehold, well-located and operationally efficient industrial space is particularly limited.
Does land scarcity guarantee that property prices will rise?
No. Scarcity alone cannot compensate for poor location, weak demand, unsuitable specifications, short tenure or an excessive purchase price. The strongest assets combine scarcity with genuine usefulness.
What are the Maju Forest and Gillman Barracks petitions asking for?
The Maju Forest petition seeks greater transparency, fuller consideration of brownfield alternatives and a reduction in forest clearance while still delivering the planned homes.
The Gillman Barracks petition argues that substantial housing is already planned within the nearby Greater Southern Waterfront and asks that Gillman Barracks and its surrounding forest remain a heritage, lifestyle, recreational and green enclave. Both petitions question whether Singapore's housing objectives can be achieved without permanently removing more natural or semi-natural land.
Speak to Marc
For investors reviewing Singapore commercial or industrial property, the key is not simply to buy something labelled "scarce". It is to identify assets where scarcity, tenure, specifications, location and real occupier demand come together.
Email: marc@era.com.sg
Source and credit
This commentary references the Save Maju Forest petition. The petition is presented as a public advocacy document; its proposals and calculations are not treated as official government findings.
Additional factual references: SingStat births and fertility data; Population.gov.sg longevity data; Population.gov.sg overall population data; and URA long-term planning material.
Disclaimer
This article is intended as general market commentary and should not be treated as financial, legal, tax or investment advice. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and seek professional advice before making any property purchase decision.
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