East Coast is a nice, especially if you are active and do a lot of jogging or cycling. The only problem is, the current MRT line doesn’t have great connections to most of the
condos there.
The new downtown MRT line now goes all the way to upper Bukit Timah, that area has some decent housing options with better prices.
I once knew a young American guy who worked downtown and he rented a
condo at Compass Heights — right on top of the mall and Sengkang MRT station. I’ve been to his condo and it wasn’t bad, the rent was cheap, and it was a 30 minute train to the CBD… but it also depends where exactly in the CBD you need to go.