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Research

Data-driven studies on Singapore condo investing — each one built from URA caveats, rental contracts and public data, and written to answer a single practical question. No opinions for hire; just what the transactions say.

Featured · Pricing study

How much is a higher floor worth — and should you pay the developer’s price?

The resale market pays ~0.28% per floor; 2026 new launches charge ~0.5%. So on a plain stack you may be pre-paying for height you won’t recover — unless it unlocks a view. We measured all three, same stack.

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Market vs developer

0.28% vs 0.5%/floor

Developers charge ~1.8× what mature resale rewards for height. A quarter of stacks reward it barely at all.

Where a sea/city view opens, the market pays 3–6%/floor — that’s when to pay up.

Featured · Market shift

The HDB–private divergence — and what it means for upgraders

HDB resale prices have fallen two quarters running — the first back-to-back dip in nearly seven years — while private homes kept edging up. Why the two markets are splitting, and what upgraders should do now.

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Last 12 months

+2.9% vs −0.7%

Private ($psf) still rising while HDB resale slips — the “BTO → MOP → condo” playbook is no longer automatic.

OCR condos lean on HDB upgraders; CCR does not — so they react differently.

Featured · Fair-value model

The undervalued-projects screen

Our foundational model: strip out lease decay, price every attribute the market pays for — district, MRT, size, floor, age, build type — then flag the full-facility condos trading below fair value, with a district heat map of where they cluster.

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In the screen

full-facility condos across 22 districts trade 8%+ below model fair value — a due-diligence shortlist, not a buy signal.

Built on the lease-decay base layer · R² 0.74.

Featured · Location study

Amber Road freehold: is there really a boutique premium?

We tested the classic Katong belief — that small boutique freehold blocks command a premium — against every freehold project within 1.5 km of Amber Road.

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Key finding

+31%

Large (>100u) freehold trades ~31% higher $psf than boutique (<50u) — the premium runs the other way.

Boutiques also sell ~9× less often, with no faster appreciation.

Price premiums

What buyers pay for newness, height, tenure and size — and how much is recoverable.

Pricing

New-launch premium vs resale

How much more do buyers pay for a new launch over nearby resale — and how much of it is recoverable at resale?

Key finding: a ~+48% headline gap, but like-for-like it’s ~+38% — and most of the newness premium isn’t recoverable as the project ages into ordinary resale.

Browse by district

Prefer to explore by area rather than by study? Jump into any of Singapore’s 28 districts.

By location

Search by district (D1–D28)

Open the interactive district map — median $psf, project count and recent transactions for each district — then drill into the one you’re eyeing.

Open the district map › Market pulse

Market intelligence dashboard

The whole private market at a glance from URA caveats — median $psf and year-on-year move, new-launch vs resale pricing, segment medians and a district league table.

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Project size & scale

How the number of units in a project moves its price — the site’s core body of work.

Size · Tenure

Project sizing: does unit count move $psf?

Holding location and tenure fixed, we track median $psf across unit bands — separately for freehold and 99-year leasehold.

Key finding: 99-yr leasehold under ~100 units trades roughly 13–17% below its same-tenure neighbours; freehold $psf peaks around 150–300 units.

Boutique vs large

Pairs of condos matched on district, tenure, era and MRT distance — differing only in size — compared on current $psf.

Key finding: across matched pairs the larger project trades about 18% higher $psf on average — the size premium is real and widest in the prime districts.

Medium vs mega

Do 800+ unit “mega” projects out-price ~400-unit medium ones? Matched on location and tenure.

Key finding: mega beats medium by +16% (OCR) and +10% (RCR) — but the premium flips to flat in the prime CCR.

Tenure & lease decay

Freehold versus 99-year leasehold — what the transactions say about holding value.

Tenure · Foundation

Does the market really follow Bala’s Table?

The lease-decay curve, estimated from transactions and checked against Bala’s Table — the base layer of a fair-value model. Freehold pins building age; the rest is lease decay.

Key finding: the market prices leasehold close to Bala’s Table (~92% of the theoretical discount) — kinder to young leases (~95% of freehold at 85–94 yrs), harsher below ~55 years. Not the cliff folklore claims.

Leasehold vs freehold: which held value better?

“Freehold always holds its value.” We tested it: 5-year resale $psf growth of freehold vs 99-year leasehold, by CCR/RCR/OCR region, matched on district, size and age.

Key finding: over the last 5 years it’s a near dead heat — leasehold even out-grew freehold in the OCR suburbs (~1.5pp/yr), while you still pay ~14–15% more per sq ft for freehold. Its real edge is a long-hold, lease-tail story.

Location & transport

What the map is worth — MRT access and the premiums buyers actually pay for it.

Location · MRT

MRT premium: how much is walking distance worth?

The $psf premium buyers pay by distance band to the nearest station — controlling for district, tenure, unit size and time.

Key finding: ~+10% within 300 m, fading to zero beyond ~500 m, and steepest in the city-fringe RCR. “Near MRT” only pays when it’s a genuine short walk.

Growth & market trends

Where demand and supply are heading across the island.

Growth areas

Where Singapore is growing

The job and infrastructure growth nodes of URA Master Plan 2025, mapped — the long-run demand story behind each district.

Key finding: 8 major growth corridors across ~13 districts — Jurong Lake, Punggol Digital, the Greater Southern Waterfront, Paya Lebar and more — where new jobs and rental demand are heading.

The HDB upgrader wave

The 2024–2030 pipeline of HDB flats reaching their 5-year MOP, by town — the next pool of private-home upgraders.

Key finding: flags the HDB towns with 3,000+ flats hitting their 5-year MOP in 2024–2030 — the strongest upgrader-demand signals for nearby condos.

Primary schools & P1 balloting

Every primary school’s Phase-2C admission odds and verified secondary affiliations — and what school access is really worth to a nearby home.

Key finding: a 1 km address is not admission — real Phase-2C odds vary widely (Nan Hua ~25%, Nanyang ~67%), and several assumed “affiliations” (Nan Hua, Nan Chiau, Raffles Girls’) simply don’t exist.

Looking for the interactive tools? Try Indicative valuation, Invest, Rental yields and Schools — plus each project’s own Investor Score & calculators.

Latest studies

Seven new studies — each answering one measurable investor question, all on the lease-normalised base layer.

Pipeline · Map

Upcoming new launches — where they are

Every 2026 new-launch project mapped — URA Government Land Sales sites plus announced developer launches.

Key finding: ~12,600 units across 20 launches, heavily weighted to the RCR and OCR. Filter by region or type; click any marker for details.

Open the map › En-bloc · Screen

En-bloc potential: which condos could be next?

Every standing condo scored on the profile of 144 past collective sales — old, small, freehold, central, low-rise.

Key finding: the en-bloc DNA is median 30 years old, 36 units, 91% freehold. We score all 800+ candidates 0–100 on those factors, with a transparent per-project breakdown.

Open the screen › Income · Screen

The yield screen: condos renting above their neighbours

The income mirror of the undervalued screen — gross yield benchmarked against the same-era condos nearest each project.

Key finding: 79 projects pay a yield meaningfully above their neighbourhood; 24 are a double signal — also below fair price, so cheap to buy and high-yielding at once.

Open the screen › EC · Guide

Executive Condos: the investor & buyer guide

The complete EC hub — upcoming launches, ECs reaching MOP, and every resale EC priced against its area.

Key finding: long-run a resale EC trades on par with the condos around it (only ~3.5% off), yet launched ~20% cheaper by policy — the value play. Now with a fair-value read on every resale EC.

The TOP effect: price path after completion

Do condos re-rate up or down after they’re built? Freehold-equivalent $psf by years since TOP.

Key finding: a just-completed project trades ~+20% over a mature same-district peer, and it fades with age — the newness premium is a wasting asset.

Rental yield vs capital growth

Which districts pay income and which pay appreciation — ranked on both, freehold-equivalent.

Key finding: the two trade off — top-yield districts are heartland, top-growth sits elsewhere, and only a few clear above-median on both.

Which condos are hardest to sell?

Resale market depth by project size, age and tenure — how easily you can actually exit.

Key finding: mega projects are ~36× deeper than boutique blocks (36 vs 1 sale/yr); the oldest projects trade thinnest.

The unit-size trap

Do small units really invest better — or do you just pay more per square foot?

Key finding: shoeboxes carry a +8% $psf premium vs their district while large units trade −6% — a 14-point trap behind the “affordable” quantum.

En-bloc optionality: is old freehold worth it?

Freehold’s land value vs leasehold decay, tracked by age — when the premium pays off.

Key finding: the freehold premium widens with age — ~2 points when young to +27 by 45+ years; a long-dated option that’s dead money on a short hold.

The family-demand premium

Is a “1 km of a good school” address really worth a price premium?

Key finding: largely a myth at the $psf level — near-school units trade within ±0.5% of peers. The value is demand depth, not a markup.

From land price to launch price — is construction fixed?

A break-even model of new launches: launch $psf ≈ (land + construction) × uplift. We test whether construction is fixed per psf while land drives location.

Key finding: a fixed ~$550/psf construction plus a constant uplift reproduces launch prices across CCR/RCR/OCR — construction is near-constant, land is the variable.

Every GLS land bid, 2019–2026

What developers actually bid for land — every winning and losing bid in $psf ppr, overall and by CCR/RCR/OCR region.

Key finding: land has re-rated hard — the psf ppr a winner pays is the clearest forward read on where new launches will price.

Every EC land bid, 2019–2026

Executive-condo land tenders, every bid in $psf ppr — the floor under future EC launch prices.

Key finding: EC land rates have climbed fastest off a low base, lifting the price of each new EC generation.

GLS supply risk: where new competition lands

Committed Government Land Sales homes vs existing stock, by district.

Key finding: supply is concentrated, not spread — a handful of districts absorb large launches that cap resale $psf and rents for a few years.

Suggest a study

Got a question the data could answer — a project, a district, or a myth you want tested? Tell us what you’re weighing and whether you’re a buyer, upgrader, landlord or agent, and we’ll look at putting it next in the pipeline.

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