S$23,400 a month. That is the top recorded rental contract at Acorn, a ten-unit sliver of a building on Mohamed Sultan Road — a figure that sits in the same ledger as a S$2,850 contract at the bottom end. An eight-times spread across just eight recorded tenancies (as of 2026-07) tells you two things at once: the units inside this District 9 boutique are wildly heterogeneous, and at least some of them are very special indeed.
What Acorn does not have is a sales record. Zero recorded transactions means no psf benchmark, no valuation anchor, and no way to know what the market last paid for a slice of this address. What it does have is one of the highest walkability scores in the ShiokNest database — 89 out of 100 — earned the honest way: Fort Canning MRT 323 metres away, a mall at 204 metres, a park at 203 metres, and Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) at 260 metres.
This review, then, is an exercise in reading a property through its surroundings — the River Valley new-launch wave repricing everything around it — and being frank about how much the missing data should worry you.
Acorn sits on Mohamed Sultan Road in District 9 — Orchard, Cairnhill and River Valley — inside the Core Central Region. The surrounding market has been comprehensively repriced by the new-launch cohort: River Modern averages S$3,240.07 psf, The Avenir (freehold) S$3,191.01 psf, River Green S$3,137.83 psf, Irwell Hill Residences S$2,730.39 psf and Kopar at Newton S$2,512.42 psf. Acorn itself, with ten units, no recorded sales and an unrecorded completion year, is the opposite of that cohort — a micro-block whose value proposition is address and intimacy rather than facilities and volume. Its moderate en-bloc score of 44 reflects a small site with unknowns rather than an active redevelopment story.
Overview & Key Facts
ACORN is a condominium at MOHAMED SULTAN ROAD in District 9 (CCR), developed by , comprising 10 units.
Location & Connectivity
ACORN is approximately 320m from Fort Canning MRT station, with 14 stations within 1.5 km.
| Station | Line | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Fort Canning | Downtown Line | 320m |
| Dhoby Ghaut | North-South Line | 720m |
| Dhoby Ghaut | North-East Line | 720m |
| Dhoby Ghaut | Circle Line | 720m |
| Clarke Quay | North-East Line | 800m |
| Somerset | North-South Line | 830m |
Schools & Education
12 schools within 2 km (3 within 1 km priority zone).
| School | Type | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) | Primary | 260m |
| Kheng Cheng School | Primary | 820m |
| Singapore Management University | Tertiary | 980m |
| ACS (Junior) | Primary | 1.3 km |
| Outram Secondary School | Secondary | 1.3 km |
| School of the Arts | Jc | 1.3 km |
| Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts | Tertiary | 1.3 km |
| Gan Eng Seng School | Secondary | 1.8 km |
Neighbourhood Comparison
| Condo | Tenure | Avg PSF | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| IRWELL HILL RESIDENCES | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2020 | $2,730 psf | 584 |
| RIVER GREEN | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2024 | $3,138 psf | 492 |
| RIVER MODERN | 99 years leasehold | $3,240 psf | 424 |
| THE AVENIR | Freehold | $3,191 psf | 323 |
| KOPAR AT NEWTON | 99 yrs lease commencing from 2019 | $2,512 psf | 256 |
What Could Work Against You
- At 10 units, this is a boutique development — fewer comparable sales to anchor valuations, and maintenance costs spread across a smaller fee base.
Best suited for
Who This Actually Suits
Buyers most likely to be happy here: mrt-walkable commuters, p1 school balloting families and boutique low-density (<100 units). Located ~323m from Fort Canning MRT, this property is a comfortable daily walk for transit commuters.
yield-focused investors and foreign / absd-aware buyers should treat this as a shortlist candidate, not a default choice.
families with young children, sports / active lifestyle and resort facilities should probably look elsewhere. Family-suitable layout and CCR (Core Central Region) location with established school catchments nearby.
The walkability case borders on unfair. A score of 89 — with near-maximum marks across MRT (323m to Fort Canning on the Downtown Line), mall (204m), park (203m) and schools (257m) — describes a life where the car is optional and most errands finish inside ten minutes on foot. Dhoby Ghaut's triple-line interchange lies 720m out, Clarke Quay 800m, Somerset 830m and Great World 860m: five stations and effectively six lines inside a kilometre. Compare that against other central addresses on the island commute-time map and few score better.
The rental evidence, thin as it is, skews premium. Eight contracts averaging S$6,560 a month — with that S$23,400 outlier at the top — indicate large or distinctive units attracting tenants who could rent anywhere in River Valley (as of 2026-07). For a ten-unit building to generate eight recorded tenancies at all suggests the block turns over its rental stock actively rather than sitting empty.
Scarcity is the third argument. Ten units on Mohamed Sultan is genuinely boutique — no facilities levy spread across hundreds of owners, no transient crowd, and a Fairfield Methodist School (Primary) catchment 260m away that the digest's persona analysis flags for P1 balloting families. The Singapore Management University campus is 980m for tertiary tenants.
Finally, the neighbourhood tailwind is quantified: every competitor in the digest transacts between S$2,512 and S$3,240 psf, and River Green's 492 sales (as of 2026-07) show absorption remains deep. A well-priced boutique unit rides that tide; model the income scenarios with the rental cash-flow calculator before assuming the top-end rents repeat.
Step back and the River Valley demand picture is one of the deepest in the country. Irwell Hill Residences has logged 584 recorded sales, River Green 492 and River Modern 424 — well over a thousand committed purchases within Acorn's immediate competitive orbit, each one a household or investor concluding that this precinct justifies Core Central Region pricing. That volume does something valuable for a silent boutique: it keeps the neighbourhood's infrastructure, retail and tenant pool perpetually refreshed without the boutique's owners paying a cent toward the marketing that drives it. The lifestyle equation is unusually complete as well — a park at two hundred metres for morning runs, a mall at the same distance for everything else, and the Singapore Management University within a kilometre supplying a steady stream of faculty and graduate tenants who prize exactly this kind of quiet, small-scale address over the towers they teach beside.
The absence of a sales record is not a quirk; it is the central risk. With zero recorded transactions, a buyer cannot benchmark price, a bank cannot anchor valuation, and a seller cannot prove appreciation. Whatever number changes hands at Acorn will be negotiated in the dark, with the S$2,512-to-S$3,240 psf competitor band as the only distant reference — and those are large, full-facility developments that do not compare cleanly with a ten-unit walk-up-scale block.
The tenure and vintage are also unrecorded in the digest — no completion year, no lease data. That is a due-diligence red flag of the first order: a District 9 boutique could be freehold or could be carrying a shortened lease, and the difference is worth seven figures. Verify title, tenure and building age through official channels — URA's transaction and planning records are the starting point — before any offer, and treat the rental spread (S$2,850 to S$23,400) as proof that units here cannot be assumed alike.
Foreign and PR buyers face the standard CCR arithmetic: ABSD at current rates on a District 9 purchase is punitive, and the digest flags this persona amber for exactly that reason. Run the full duty stack on the stamp duty and ABSD calculator. Lastly, families should note the digest scores this address red for young children despite the school proximity — ten units means no pool, no playground, and Mohamed Sultan's nightlife heritage is not a family amenity.
The rental sample deserves its own health warning before anyone builds a business case on it. Eight contracts is a small base, and when one of them sits at S$23,400 — more than three times the average — the mean becomes almost meaningless as a planning number. A prudent underwriter would strip the outlier, work from the remaining band, and still apply a vacancy allowance generous enough to reflect a ten-unit building where a single empty unit is ten per cent of the block. The unknown developer and unrecorded completion year compound the caution: without knowing who built it or when, a buyer cannot infer construction quality, warranty history or the likely timing of major capital works, all of which land proportionally harder on ten owners than on five hundred. In short, everything about this address argues for paying for a thorough building survey before paying for the building.
- ✅ MRT-walkable commuters
- ✅ P1 school balloting families
- ✅ Boutique low-density (<100 units)
- ⚠️ Yield-focused investors
- ⚠️ Foreign / ABSD-aware buyers
- ❌ Resort facilities
Acorn is a connoisseur's problem. The location evidence is overwhelming — an 89 walkability score, five stations inside a kilometre, a primary school in catchment and a mall across the road — and the rental ledger proves tenants will pay serious money to live here (as of 2026-07). But the investment file is missing its most important pages: no sale prices, no tenure record, no completion year. You are buying a District 9 address on trust plus a title search.
Shortlist it if you are a buyer who does their own forensic due diligence — an owner-occupier or landlord who will verify tenure and building condition independently, negotiate off competitor benchmarks, and hold long enough that entry-price imprecision washes out. Pass if you need data-driven certainty; the district offers Irwell Hill, River Green and Kopar at Newton with hundreds of recorded transactions each, and they can be lined up on the project comparison tool in minutes.
If you do proceed, think in decades, not cycles. Boutique CCR assets reward owners who let scarcity mature — and punish anyone who needs a quick, cleanly priced exit.
FAQ
What is the average PSF for ACORN?
Is ACORN freehold?
What is the rental yield for ACORN?
Which MRT is nearest to ACORN?
Sources & Next Steps
- ACORN Dashboard — Live charts and analytics
- URA REALIS — Official transaction data
- District 9 (Orchard, Cairnhill, River Valley) — District 9 neighbourhood guide
Methodology & Sources
This analysis covers All available years and refreshes as new data becomes available.
Transaction data sourced from URA REALIS.
- Sales data: 0 transactions
- Rental data: 8 leases
- Source: URA REALIS
Median values used to minimise outlier impact. PSF = price per square foot.
Price Index Check
The ShiokNest Price Index for District 9 reads 102.6 as of June 2026 — up 1.2% year-on-year. The index tracks repeat-sales price movement, so it is less distorted by shifts in what happens to be transacting than a raw average PSF.
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HDB Alternatives Nearby
Weighing ACORN against staying public? These HDB towns sit within walking or short-drive distance:
- Central Area — 4-room average $1,088,814 (610m away)
- Bukit Merah — 4-room average $894,787 (1 km away)
- Kallang/whampoa — 4-room average $882,887 (1.6 km away)