Weekly.
Every URA caveat, the latest land sales, government announcements and all 67,184 live listings — analysed weekly so you don't have to. The finds worth viewing, the reviews before you commit, and what the data says before the headlines do.
The ceiling moved to $16,000. So did the grant most buyers actually get.
The BTO ceiling rose to $16,000 and the EC ceiling to $18,000 — and the CPF Housing Grant and HDB loan ceilings moved with them.
The fifteen-month wait is gone. The thirty-month ones are not.
HDB removed the fifteen-month wait-out on 27 July. Three other clocks were left running, two of them twice as long.
One title, two front doors. The tax is the point, and the rent is the reason.
A dual-key is one property for duty, so it saves $155,100 against buying two units — and the studio side earns like a small unit. Two things everyone says about dual-key pricing are wrong.
What your salary actually buys — the honest table, after TDSR, MSR and LTV.
At the top of each ceiling: $1.41m on a flat, $1.51m on an EC, $2.77m private. Plus what CPF actually contributes. The full salary-to-price table.
Dunearn House sold 56% at $3,140 psf. On a street that is nine-tenths freehold.
212 of 380 units gone in a weekend at $3,140 psf. What that buys against ten mature neighbours — nine of them freehold.
Three housing changes in four months. None of them reaches the EC upgrader.
The 8 May EC reset, the August ceilings and the removal of the 15-month wait-out are three separate reliefs aimed at three different households — and the stretched EC upgrader is in none of them.
Two ways to buy the land. Two different markups on it.
State-tendered land is marked up 2.23×, freehold en-bloc land 1.96×. Most of that gap is region mix — and the spread matters more than the middle.
The Quantum Ladder. The front money doubles at every rung.
One asset at a time, moved up in deliberate steps. What each rung costs, the age cliff that closes the ladder, and the six ways it fails.
The EC Flip. You are paid for waiting, not for risk.
The tender closing date decides your lock, your payment scheme and your ceiling. What it costs to enter, and the six ways it fails.
The Decouple. Lawful, narrower than you think, and watched.
One spouse transfers their share so the other buys at 0% ABSD. What it saves, what it costs, why it is closed to most HDB flats, and how section 33A now reads it.
The Dual Launch. Two positions, or one bet twice.
Holding two positions at once so you are exposed to two cycles. The capital it demands, the correlation that undoes it, and the six ways it fails.
The Yield Play. Computed on a number you never paid.
Buying for income rather than appreciation. Why the advertised yield overstates it by a fifth, what belongs in the denominator, and the six ways it fails.
The Castle. One asset, and the law picks your buyer.
Consolidating several holdings into one landed home. What the duty does at scale, who the Residential Property Act permits to buy it back, and the six ways it fails.
What you can actually afford. Your deposit decides it, not your salary.
The loan is not what stops most first-timers. The quarter you must find before the first instalment is. Work backwards from it.
“I gladly paid the ABSD because it is freehold landed.” Is that actually wise?
He paid 20% ABSD on a second property and said he was glad to, because it was freehold landed. We tested the argument properly.
Thomson Reserve: the $810 million en bloc that now has to sell 1,268 homes.
The $810m Thomson View en bloc, now 1,268 units on $1,178 land. The arithmetic, the Cross Island Line, and the scale problem.
Lucerne Grand: what $1,132 psf of Jurong Lake District land implies.
CDL paid $1,132 psf for Lakeside Drive. The lake already trades at $1,557 and yields 3.65%. The gap, measured.
Your first BTO: the full process, the real timeline, and what trips people up.
Eligibility, the ballot, the staged payments and the eight-to-ten year commitment nobody plans for. Plus the five decisions people regret.
Buying your first new launch condo: what actually happens, step by step.
5% on the day, 20% within ten weeks, and a unit chosen in twenty minutes. The full sequence before you walk into the showflat.
The en bloc rules are changing. Here’s what 70% actually means.
Consent falls to 70% at forty years and 65% at sixty — but the group needed to block a sale grows by half. The arithmetic, both ways.
Rebuilding your first terrace: what it actually costs, and how long it actually takes.
$400 psf to build, 25% more to finish, and 18–24 months of which only half is construction. The costs and rules before you commit to a plot.
We checked 67,000 property exits. Here's who actually loses money.
67,354 five-year exits, decomposed by district. D01 lost money most of the time; D28 almost never did.
Freehold under $1,400 psf still exists — in exactly 22 places
856 freehold projects tracked; only 22 with real volume still trade under $1,400 psf. The whole list, with exit records.
POV Verdict: Springleaf Residence — did 920 buyers overpay for the north?
941 units, 98% sold, $2,168 psf at the station. The verdict on the north’s new benchmark.
Nobody brags about D28. It has Singapore's best exit record — 96.7% profitable
96.7% of 2,321 five-year exits profitable — the best record in Singapore. Why boring wins.
The 4% club: 99 projects where rental yields are actually real
Averages say two-something. The data says 99 projects clear 4% — and every high-yield cluster has a catch.
The decay curve: what your 99-year lease actually loses, decade by decade
The exit record by lease decade — from triple digits to 49% — and the freehold twist nobody expects.
POV Verdict: Parktown Residence — the price of never needing an umbrella
1,193 units on the highest land multiplier we’ve measured. What Tampines’ integrated giant has to prove.
Telok Kurau: freehold at $1,400–1,700 psf, ten minutes from $2,900-psf launches
Freehold at $1,400–$1,700 psf, ten minutes from $2,900 launches. The lorongs, priced honestly.
The MOP wave map: 14,000 Tengah flats and your next buyer
14,124 Tengah flats hit MOP soon. Where the upgrader waves land next — and which condos are positioned to catch them.
HDB stopped building big in 1995. We mapped every block that still has them.
794 blocks still hold maisonettes, jumbos and terraces. Where the biggest HDB homes hide, and what they cost.
POV Verdict: Chuan Park — the en-bloc ghost returns at $2,579 psf
916 units on one of the thinnest multipliers of the cycle, at the D19 frontier. Honest pricing — or thin margin?
Springleaf: prata shops, a forest, and the north's most violent repricing
From prata stop to $2,168 psf. What the Thomson line woke up — and the freehold anomaly two bus stops away.
The yield map: where 4% is real — and where it's a myth
D02 yields 4.26%, D10 yields 2.62%. The district-by-district yield map, and what prime buyers actually pay for.
318 condos trade 20%+ below their own district. The 50% club is where it gets interesting.
318 projects trade 20%+ below their own district median. The deep-end table — value or trap, decided by exit records.
POV Verdict: Emerald of Katong — the 99% sell-out nobody regrets yet
846 units, 99% gone at launch. The D15 honesty check: 90.6% of five-year exits still made money.
Flora Drive: one private road, nine freehold condos, no MRT — and it works
One private road, nine freehold condos, no MRT — and a 2024 launch that repriced the entire street.
D8: city-fringe at $1,804 psf — the cheapest RCR entry in Singapore, with one catch
The cheapest city-fringe median in Singapore, 4–5% yields, and one asterisk that explains the discount.
5 of the cheapest freehold 4-bedders with 1,500+ sqft — from $1.8M
Five real listings, five exit records, and the maths that separates cheap from value.
Kassia, and the 30-year Flora Drive experiment
The last piece of a private freehold enclave, priced 73% above the street that made it work. Every exit, decomposed.
The 2.3× rule: developers price your condo years before it exists
44 launches, one formula — and what it already implies for Hougang, Bedok and Lentor.
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