Record 209 million-dollar HDB flats sold in September 2026

This is what you get when property appreciation has outstripped income appreciation. Housing shouldn't be meant to be a buy sell buy sell flipping asset. People buy at 400K, sell at 800K, or buy at 800K, sell at 1.7M. since when has your income have a 100% growth in 5 years? We barely get a 3% increment a year. Home owners should not be allowed to set their own prices and this free market mechanism has led to a run away impact whereby home owner buy to flip, and not buy to stay. The gahmen is also caught in a dilemma. Housing is trying to do too many things at once. Why give 2nd timers a chance at BTOs? if the gahmen crash the market, retirees would be unhappy, they lose votes. If the gahmen keep prices up, which they do now, younger people face increasing barriers to entry. Many young people struggle to afford homes, because how can your 3-4K salary afford a 500 or 600K BTO? critiques say "nobody ask you to get resale, go buy your VERY "CHEAP " bto. These critiques are often boomers who they themselves bought at below 100K 30 years ago, and now is sitting on a so called "paper profit". They can't relate to what your generation is going through. The boomers had it easier. This is what occurs when PUBLIC subsidies is used to fund PRIVATE gains. A messed up economic model that needs serious review. When a bto is sold at 2X gains, such as selling at 1.7M, the buyer has to be indebted to pay for it. It leads to a runaway effect whereby people buy high and sell higher, to keep private gains, and hope they won't be the last one holding the musical chair. This is not a sustainable economic model. Before you comment, read this paper: https://www.academia.sg/academic-views/ch… Let's not even start talking about how many first timer couples was not successful for balloting for BTOs, even after 3, 4 , 5 times. Singles? Age 35? Forget it, 20 to 1 application ratio. So who is to be blamed for the 0.87 TFR? by the time couples are ready, ballot, get their house in mid 30s, 35 already? How to pop out babies?

Thanks for the award.

For a username like yours, your post isn’t very well written.    Firstly, the post mentioned million dollar flats exchanged hands at 9.3% of total volume. Indeed, if you look at income breakdown, recent stats show 19.3% Singaporeans earn >= $10,000 a month.    https://www.hdb.gov.sg/managing-my-home/s…    Not sure if you’re pulling numbers out of your ass but 5 room flats in Bishan transacted close to a million dollars which makes sense since its location and size should command a premium    Flats in Jurong East are still affordable    The question isn’t rising resale index. It has gone down last quarter. The question is why are we priced out of good locations.    Yet you don’t see that the inclusive BTO policies allow median households to stand a chance at a prime location.    For all your complaints, the government is actively trying to make society fairer 

A 3rm BTO in June 2026 went for as low as 245K without grants. With grants? 145K Why would a couple earning 3-4K can’t afford it?

Untrue. No evidence. And also no point trying to bring in outlier 1 to 2 cases to say that it is affordable when it isn't. Your pro PAP bias is quite alarming. Also, with grants? A couple each earning 4K, a combined income of 8K won't be eligible for the "up to 120K grants". Don't try to scam and misleading people by saying the 120K grants is applicable for them. It is only applicable for those earning a combined income of 1500 or less. Who earns 750 a month?

Relax. Frankly, you are throwing anecdotal snippets but asking everyone who disagree to show evidence.

Wheres your proof to show a combined income of 8K a month , each earning 4K is eligible for 100K in Grants? Did U even read the grant table? Or seen it yet? No point trying to bring in "edge" cases of 3 room flats below 245K to say housing is affordable when it isn't.

https://dam.mediacorp.sg/image/upload/s--… Aren’t you the policy analyst?

You make to make claims to say just because of edge cases of "200K" 4 room flats and claim that the broader market is affordable when it isn't. Pls answer the question of 1) first timers not being able to get after multiple balloting, forced to go resale and 2) uncapped and unregulated resale markets and resale prices appreciation of 50% since 2019. Double digit increases in 2021, 2022. https://hdbinsights.sg/hdb-resale-price-i…

Cannot get unit? Then go apply SBF from the leftover units from June BTO launch. Ready in less than 3 years. No need say so much. Is it no unit or not flippable unit??? Sembawang Portico will have a wait time of two years and seven months, while Sembawang Brook will have a wait time of two years and nine months. The application rate for first-timer families for three-room, four-room and five-room/3Gen flat types was 0.7, 0.6 and 0.4, respectively, meaning that fewer than one applicant was vying for each flat.

You make it sound like SBF is easier to get than BTO when it isn't. Where's your stats to show that it is so easy to get as you claimed? The demand for SBF is even higher than BTO

Bro nobody asked for what sembwaang portico. Don't distract and divert away from the question. Look at my original post. I'm talking about the FLIPPING of BTOs and how this pushes up the entire resale market. You're changing the question and trying to rage bait others by citing untruthful facts and random numbers

If you like sembwaang so much, you can be my guest to go stay there yourself. No point citing edge cases to say that bto is affordable and able to ballot within 1 try. You cited 1 project in 1 balloting cycle. Why aren't you citing the numbers for the plus and prime projects? The entire balloting cycle is only made up of standard units?

Your logic of trying to bring in "edge cases" to say see, there is 1 or 2 cases below 300K doesn't work out. I'm referring to standard 4 and 5 room houses, units that people want to settle down to start a family. Don't try to bring in 3 room flats to say it is affordable. Also, bto is based off balloting. How many young people, first timers did not get a ballot after 5 or 7 tries and forced to go into resale?

What you talking. What kind of analyst are you? This BTO le what 1-2 units you talking about? Sembawang 4rm with grants starting at 222K, June application rate was below 1.0. You can ask those no money and cannot ballot to apply for that. Straight away can get.

Lol what kind of statements you make ? "Those no money can ballot and straight away get". No such logic. You like to spread fake lies and weird statements to support your weird logic . No money can ballot ? Where's the proof? HDB will require you to get a HFE better even before balloting. You can't pay the mortgage how to ballot?

Lmao you think you're good but you're not. You're only good in twisting facts to make it sound like "you're winning". But you're not. If the market is so affordable as you claimed than people won't be so unhappy about the high cost of living. You're quite out of touch isn't it? Downvoted you back

What is sound like you’re winning? What you talking about? I’m giving you facts and numbers. You don’t know talking about what? The price and subscription rate of June BTO is public information you can go and see yourself.

Does it sound like you're winning also? Stop trying to rage bait others on Reddit. I'm asking for proof to show "100K grants" for a combined income of 8K. You have yet to show it

I already gave you the infographic. I think is you the person who trying to rage bait 😂 So agitated about what? 😂😂😂

Where's the proof to show that a combined income of 8K gets 100K of grants for BTO?

It doesn't sound like you're winning when you cite random numbers and make up stories that "those who don't have money can ballot and still get it"

It doesn't sound like you're winning by citing random numbers, claiming there are huge subsidies, when asked to show stats, you kept quiet. Which part of that shows that you're winning?

Already pasted for you. You wanna avoid not my problem. You’re the policy analyst, shouldn’t you know better 😂

Also already pasted for you above. You're the one making up numbers and deciding to be a keyboard warrior before you do your homework. Can't help it. https://hdbinsights.sg/hdb-resale-price-i…

Perhaps you're the one that doesn't seem to know what you're talking about? You even make claims that those who don't have money "can ballot and get it". It's really strange and absurd claims that you made

No money buy? No worries. You can rent directly from HDB : https://www.hdb.gov.sg/renting-a-flat/pub…

Stop changing the topic. Refer to your above statement. Do you need me to quote it word for word? You mentioned that no money to buy also can ballot. Don't twist the topic to be about renting.

I don't think it can be aimed squarely on boomers. Even those flats built post 2010s had a bto price under 100k for a 3 room for one of the estates I found the brochure to, now listing for 500k as resale unit. Transacts between 460-510k in the last few years.  It's those who can bto because of marriage and those who cannot.

Then u should ask the question of who is the one that allowed this buying and selling and flipping in the first place? And what is the consequences of that? When housing is used as flipping, instead of staying?

Then this perpetuates further inequality between property owners and non property owners. To flip and the "lottery effect"

Bah, housing is still relatively affordable to the masses here, otherwise the incumbent would have been voted out years ago. The problem is that some buyers like yourself are particularly picky on their flats: \* Must be high-floor, \* Must be near MRT, \* Must be near amenities, \* Cannot be east-west unit to face the sun, \* Must be near city, \* Must be 4-room or bigger, and \* Must be 10 years old or less Obviously, these narrows down the list of eligible flats and only leaves you with a small number of competitive flats that everyone is after! You can still get a relatively affordable flat in the outskirts. You can still get a BTO (if you qualify for it) or get a smaller flat if you’d like. You can still rent if you die die want these conditions but just can’t afford it. I’m seeing more from my cohort (Gen Z) who are renting which is great to manage their cashflow while managing their own investments, and sinkies need to taper their expectations when it comes to housing and understand that $1M+ resale HDB only exists if you can afford it and are extremely choosy over your dream home.

My sbf unit matches every single description; except hdb used the same metric to sell it to me at 800k too

I'm trying to understand your grievances. You don't like high resale prices, ok, understood. What's the alternative other than allowing the market to decide? If the government intervenes to lower resale prices, then you have a bigger problem. Private properties have been rising much faster than HDB. Wouldn't you be creating an even bigger wealth divide when people who can afford private properties see their assets grow faster? You don't like seeing subsidies being privately monetized and at the same time, complain about new flats being too expensive. Ok, then what's your proposal? Don't blame the boomers - today's generation will be the boomers tomorrow. Most people who bought from the government today are already factoring in the profits from MOP into their FI plans. Entire generations are benefitting from cashing out their BTOs. It's one of the mechanisms for wealth building in this country. You want to take this away from them? Where the government can do better is to (a) address the supply gap, which they have been doing and (b) provide it at more affordable cost with higher subsidies (since we have plenty of surplus).

10y MOP is a good start. But why stop there. Why should we let people gamble with housing 🤦🏻‍♂️. There are many other investment vehicles other than housing.

Well, because for a significant segment of the population, the HDB flat is the single largest investment they are making and it also serves the primary purpose of providing shelter. If you do not allow their investment to appreciate in value by letting market decide, then aren't you being unfair to them when the same is allowed for private properties?

I guess that’s the true motive. The lives of future generations are something they are willing to sacrifice.

Well, the government's job is to ensure that there is ample supply and sufficient subsidies given to the younger buyers to address affordability issues. Wouldn't future generations benefit once they sell these units at higher market prices?

Good investment or not? Don’t know. But 100% is a hedge against inflation. Because no matter what, you need a roof to sleep under. Rental can go up, construction cost can go up. Mortgage? It will only become cheaper over time.

Later buy high, property price drop by 300k. good hedge against inflation then?

As long as you don’t buy overpriced, you be fine. You ever see prices of hard assets drop in long run? When gold drop in 2010s, did it never recover? My main point is you need a place to stay anyway. Better you buy a good property today than to wait until some magic point in time to buy.

As long as you buy for own stay and don't sell, property price drop won't affect you. Of course property prices will have ups and downs in the long run.

Here's the breakdown of those million dollar flats by town area: https://sghdbresale.com/million-dollar-flats Honestly, housing is getting so expensive lol. RIP house ownership in SG.

Claude default design is actually so disgusting

Why are million-dollar HDB flats selling? Because many Singaporean couples can actually afford them. Median income is about $5.7k a month, so a typical couple makes about $11.4k. HDB caps your mortgage at 30% of income, or $3,420 a month. At 2.6% over 25 years, that supports a loan of about $750k. A $750k loan covers 75% of a $1M flat. The other 25% (about $250k) comes from savings, CPF and help from parents. Stretching? Yes. Out of reach? No

So true. People tend to underestimate our earning power, we like to peg ourselves to the lower end of the income and then complain why COL so high when in fact we can very well afford to live decently. Myself included

It’s reddit, people love to be an absolute betch about everything not working for them

Try looking at Tiktok live of people ripping off pokemon packs at >$20 a pack and you wonder why people are complaining of high COL.

It's a free market. When it becomes unaffordable, prices will come down. Same buyers who complain about high resale prices will be completely silent when its their turn to sell.

Yeah wait till retrenchment hits. That $3400 mortgage going to be real difficult to finance.

Those who bought the units in my floor are all new citizens or PR(no kidding). 5 units of them.

209 a month is just insane...

I also hate seeing such prices but the reality is - people must be bidding for these crazy prices + agents pressuring. The buyers themselves are also at fault so for everyone to complain is also irrational because there are buyers. Plus now people are more willing to stretch their finances and live their lives. And not to mention actually starting salaries really did increase quite significantly. These factors are the contributing factors. I think the most unfortunate ones are the millennials that didn’t marry early or single, didn’t get the high starting salaries and now forced to join the game.

Singles reporting in.

The truth is wages has increased alot over the past few years , along with new citizens / pr bidding as well

Honestly speaking. This is just wealth transfer. Most of these owners are BTO buyers, and to qualify for this you need to be below certain income. In the secondary market, someone else paid for their profit, what’s there to complain? As long as government continues to sell BTOs below the 1M mark, all would be buyers can stand to make this windfall.

The solution is simple, allow another class of housing, a housing that’s completely removed from investment opportunity. It’s super affordable, you can only sell it back to HDB if you really have to.

the affordable version housing is called HDB.

Right now it’s still investment vehicle for boomers.

It’s not, because you never have to pay back the BTO subsidy or housing grants.

Sure, but how do you fight the years of "ÿour house is a store of value " conditioning? I have no data, but I reckon many new citizens cash out and retire "back home" too.

They dont even have to cash out. Can just rent out and cash out later.

you're right. I did not think it through.

Bah, housing is still relatively affordable to the masses here. The problem is that some buyers like yourself are **particularly** picky on their flats: \* Must be high-floor, \* Must be near MRT, \* Must be near amenities, \* Cannot be east-west unit to face the sun, \* Must be near city, \* Must be 4-room or bigger, and \* Must be 10 years old or less Obviously, these narrows down the list of eligible flats and only leaves you with a small number of competitive flats that everyone is after! You can still get a relatively affordable flat in the outskirts. You can still get a BTO (if you qualify for it) or get a smaller flat if you’d like. sinkies need to taper their expectations when it comes to housing and understand that $1M+ resale HDB only exists if you can afford it and are extremely choosy over your dream home.

The problem is that some buyers like yourself are **particularly** picky on their flats

Analogy to above is why so many singles in Spore. Picky that is why cannot find lor 😆 

We have a proper term for these people: spoilt brats These kind of people want partners who: \- Must be rich and aspire to own big HDB / condo \- Must be handsome / pretty \- Must have a degree or better qualifications \- Must have a well-paying job to brag to others \- Must have a respectable profession like doctor \- Must (add on other requirements here) Lots of them want these in their ideal partner but can’t see to it themselves to be desirable candidates for them. No wonder sinkies are bitter and love to complain about everything

Bringing elitist whataboutism is why we never get down to solve the problem. And the generalization is so striking when I check with myself it’s nothing close the truth at all. My SBF (not even BTO) is not high floor, not near MRT, none of above was considered a requirement for me 🤷🏻‍♂️. Boomer mindset should just die. Go invest somewhere else instead of playing with other people’s lives.

Well suck it up then. Too bad the electorate disagrees with you and your premise 🤣🫵

Not affordable. Median property price / median income is quite high.

This is in the manifesto of another party actually. Why it was not taken up by current ruling party is anyone guess

Don’t rock the boat they said, sacrifice future generation for boomers’ retirement fund.

What is proposed from what I understand is not ALL HDB will fall under this model. It is the creation of a subset of HDB that is under this model where one buy purely for stay not to flip make monies. Sell will then back to HDB. This subset will then be priced much lower than others and cater to a group of house owners purely looking for a house to stay and not flip. Since this is not for **ALL HDB** maybe this idea is worth exploring.

Imagine that the prices of large HDB flats follow a bell curve. A few years ago, the vertical line representing 1 million dollars barely touches the right edge of the bell curve. As inflation pushes the bell curve to the right, the number of properties to the right of the 1 million line will go up not linearly but "exponentially" (loosely speaking; didn't actually look up the formula for this). This has to happen, mathematically speaking, unless the housing market and probably the economy in general goes into recession. There is nothing particularly interesting about this 1M mark and there's no point to keep discussing this. It's just the nature of the bell curve distribution combined with inflation.

Actually there is 2 markets; if you followed closely you will notice, many older hdb flats prices are actually dropping. And many having to wait longer and longer to sell. Only the newer units are drawing these record prices

It's just noise. People wanting to buy, kpkb about high resale prices. But the same people will be silent when they want to sell.

I see it as a healthy sign of strong buyers and HDB value appreciation contributing to wealth building. When the opposite happens - property value crumbles like China, there will be even more unhappy people.

It’s a good psychological milestone to trigger deeper discussion for something that has been brought up for a very long time but yet no see the perfect solution on how to separate investment component out of housing as a basic needs. Can the future bag holders sustain this, and is it even sustainable?

I don't think it's even an investment component. It's the BTO lottery effect. Many of the current 1 million flats are Bidadari flats reaching MOP. I'm not sure that the people who are buying the 1M Bidadari flats are going to flip it. They just think that location with all the amenities nearby, and no old blocks with old neighbours around, is worth 1M. And the people selling the 1M Bidadari flats weren't making some calculated investment decision smarter than other buyers. They just won the lucky draw that lots of other people wanted. I don't hear much about people trying to flip resale HDBs at all. The resale could be a stepping stone to a condo, but it's not an investment on its own.

seems that gov is left with a very few choices to reduce the lottery effect, either crash the resale market by flooding more supply pre-BTO style, or continue increasing grant size to keep housing affordable but might increase the windfall size for whoever flip to the next bag holder. 10yr MOP is a good start. Hopefully more and more people realized that, housing is one of the basic needs we shouldn't try to gamble on. There are so many other investment vehicles to ride on. Duh.

They did the Prime Plus thing, which is actually a huge deal because you can’t sell to people above an income ceiling. That’s very extreme to me. Maybe that’s another reason why the Bidadari flats are so desirable. They are going to be some of the newest flats that won’t be under these rules despite being in a Plus-worthy location.

It’s coz voucher Wong has decided SG has enough $ to guarantee everyone’s retirement wealth via VERS which he created >10yrs ago but until today still no details how SG will actually fund it. We happily approve him being the PM AND the FM at the same time so he literally has the power to ownself approve his own proposals. Who cares if SG can really afford as well be dead by then right? Shiok!

As a Brit I'm genuinely interested in this conversation from a Singapore perspective. In the UK we have loads of space but can't get anything built due to red tape, a lack of labour force, inability to build the supporting infrastructure, and very strong laws which enable existing residents to block plans at a local level. In Singapore the amount of available space to build new homes is naturally much more limited. Yet the government seems to be able to plan infrastructure projects and actually get them done.

There’s no rights or say from local citizens or local councils for that matter. There’s only one unilateral decision making body and that is the government :) Via URA/HDB

That is one benefit of an almost one-party state. When the reins don’t switch hands, long term plans can get developed and executed instead of reversing course every few years. The opposition can only tweak the direction but not reset it.

This is a major issue with the UK. We're supposed to run on a 5-year election cycle, which even then is a short time span, but over the past ten years our governments have been very short-lived indeed. They're driven to focus on what they feel will win them the next election in a few years, rather than what will be best for the country 20 to 40 years from now.

In the UK you could move to suburban areas to escape the high costs or even another lower cost city or town. In singapore, you're trapped. Thats why most singaporeans live with their parents until their 30s, and are robbed of the chance of experiencing independent living in their 20s.

They do not for the same reasons why SG wants to stay near MRT, near malls, near workplace, etc. It's a trade-off. If you want, you can always find very affordable properties at say Woodlands, Jurong West, etc.

That's true to an extent, but since all the well-paid careers centre around the large urban centres (London, Edinburgh, Manchester etc) in reality many young people in the UK also live with parents into their 30s. Or live in single rooms in house shares.

Literally everyone i know live in house shares with friends, something that people in their 20s here cannot experience

Singapore's government owns most of the land, while the UK is held hostage by the landed gentry.

Sg gov took back land in the past which is another probably ugly topic. Thus thankfully we have a not too bad public housing policy plus gov owns the land resulting in more than 70% of people staying in public housing. If you ask me. Still a good result. And there's still cheaper options vs the alarming 1 m sales.

Big commissions.

seems like the removal of the 15-month wait out period caused a bit of a rush at the high end of the HDB resale market, though overall prices remained largely flat. the breakdown also bears this out: 5 room flats saw a price increase, while 4 room and smaller flats saw a price decrease.  seems like there's some amount of adjustment happening - I would be surprised if it doesn't normalise in a few months i.e. if the number of million dollar resales continue to go up after two quarters or so, assuming that overall prices remain flat-ish

It’s demand and supply. More supply the prices will float back down.

I think some readers posted it is not only supply but supply in the more chased after areas usually those areas near to city center. Those are highly sought after despite there are supply in far North West etc they not keen also. Why this firm stand to have one near city center could be the owners looking to flip and make monies. Selling HDB near city center sure attract more buyers and at higher price lor. But if one only buy purely for stay and not to flip then far North West should also be in their selection list with more affordable pricing.

Finance sub yet half the ppl don't like it when an investment instrument goes up in value. News flash, property investments are a thing all around the world not just Singapore. And contrary to popular belief, many Singaporeans can afford a HDB, y'all just being picky, too scared to get in debt (even if it's good debt like housing), lazy to work harder and not willing to give up your daily $7 starbucks and a overseas holiday every quarter

It’s a great investment when you buy it as an investment rental property at a reasonable price for good yield. Honestly, HDB transacted at $2m—there's not much juice for capital appreciation gain after you bought it in the next few years. On the pretext that our property market continues to grow, mortgage rates are low, wages and employment continue to grow, jobs are stable, and demand for good properties is high. Let's not forget what happened in the last few days: almighty popular local bank stocks have experienced a steep sell-down. BB might be repositioning or shifting funds in their portfolio for better risk and return—we haven’t talked about middleast war and global inflation.