HDB valuation is the figure that sets how much CPF and bank loan you can put towards a resale flat. You can use CPF and borrow only up to the valuation, so any gap between the price you agreed and the official valuation has to be paid in cash, on top of your downpayment. That cash gap is Cash Over Valuation (COV). Since March 2014, HDB no longer tells you the valuation before you commit: buyer and seller agree a price first, the seller grants the Option to Purchase (OTP), and only then can you pay $120 for the official Request for Value. So you are negotiating blind on the most expensive purchase of your life, which makes doing your own price research before you sign the single most useful thing you can do. As of the Q1 2026 flash estimate, the HDB Resale Price Index is 203.4, down 0.1% quarter on quarter, the first dip in nearly seven years. This guide explains what valuation is, how it is worked out, what it caps, and how to estimate it yourself.
HDB valuation is an independent estimate of what a resale flat is worth, done by a professional valuer that HDB appoints after you have already agreed a price with the seller. It is not the same as the price. The price is whatever you and the seller settle on; the valuation is what HDB says the flat is worth based on recent sales of comparable flats.
The valuation matters because of one rule: CPF and your housing loan can both only be used up to the valuation, never the price. If you agree to buy at $20,000 above the valuation, that $20,000 is COV and must come out of your own cash. Get the valuation wrong and you can be short tens of thousands of dollars at completion.
Before March 2014, sellers got an HDB valuation first, then advertised a flat as "valuation plus $X COV". COV became a public bidding number and got out of hand, with some flats asking $30,000 to $50,000 over valuation at the 2013 peak. HDB flipped the sequence: now you agree a price with the seller cold, the seller grants you the OTP, and only after that can you ask HDB for the valuation. With no upfront number to anchor on, the market default shifted to pricing at or near valuation, and COV fell to almost zero for most of the decade.
COV has crept back since 2023 in tight, central towns where buyers compete hard for renovated, high-floor or near-MRT units. It is paid in cash because neither CPF nor your loan will cover it. If a flat is valued at $600,000 and you agree $625,000, the $25,000 COV is cash from your pocket, separate from the 25% downpayment you already owe.
The reverse can also happen. If the valuation comes back higher than your agreed price, you have effectively bought below market, and your CPF and loan are capped at the lower price you agreed, not the higher valuation. You do not get to borrow more just because the flat valued up.
HDB appoints a licensed valuer who inspects the flat and benchmarks it against recent transacted prices of similar flats, then adjusts for the specific unit. The valuation is a point-in-time estimate of open-market value, not a fixed formula, so two flats in the same block can value differently.
The factors that move the number most are the ones you can see on a viewing. Remaining lease is one of the biggest: a flat with 60 years left is worth materially less than one with 90 years, because CPF usage and loan tenure both tighten as the lease runs down. Location and proximity to an MRT station, floor level, flat type and size, the state of the renovation, and the direction the unit faces all feed in.
Once the seller grants you the OTP, you submit the Request for Value through HDB's My Flat Dashboard by the next working day after the Option Date, together with a scanned copy of page 1 of the OTP. The processing fee is $120 including GST. If you use a property agent, they can submit it for you.
The outcome is usually ready within about 10 working days and stays valid for 3 months from the day it appears in your dashboard. You must wait for the valuation outcome before you exercise the OTP. That window is the whole point: the valuation tells you the real CPF and loan ceiling, and how much COV cash you are on the hook for, before you commit the larger exercise fee.
The OTP itself runs for 21 calendar days and expires at 4pm on the 21st day. You pay an option fee of between $1 and $1,000 when the OTP is granted (the market norm is $1,000), and an exercise fee of up to $4,000 when you exercise, with total deposit capped at $5,000. This deposit and any COV must be paid in cash, not CPF. If the valuation comes back far below your agreed price, you can choose not to exercise, but you forfeit the option fee.
| Step | What happens | Cost / timing |
|---|---|---|
| Agree price | Buyer and seller settle on a price; seller grants OTP | Option fee $1 to $1,000 (cash) |
| Request for Value | Buyer submits via My Flat Dashboard by next working day after Option Date | $120 incl. GST |
| Valuation outcome | HDB returns the official valuation | About 10 working days; valid 3 months |
| Exercise OTP | Buyer exercises after the valuation is known | Exercise fee up to $4,000; total deposit max $5,000 (cash) |
| Resale application | Both parties submit their portions within the valuation validity period | Within 3 months of the valuation outcome |
Your home loan is limited to 75% of the price or the valuation, whichever is lower, for a first housing loan over standard tenure. HDB aligned its own loan-to-value limit down to 75% from 20 August 2024, matching bank loans, so the rule is the same whether you borrow from HDB or a bank. The other 25% is your downpayment.
CPF Ordinary Account savings can cover the downpayment and the monthly instalments, but only up to the valuation. So if you agree above valuation, the COV portion sits outside both your loan and your CPF, and you find that cash separately. Stamp duty and conveyancing fees can be paid from CPF, but the initial deposit of up to $5,000 and any COV cannot.
Worked example. Say the agreed price is $650,000 and the valuation comes back at $630,000. Your loan and CPF are computed off $630,000: at 75% loan-to-value, the maximum loan is $472,500, and the 25% downpayment is $157,500 (CPF and, for a bank loan, at least 5% cash). On top of all that, you owe $20,000 COV in cash. Run the loan side through the HDB loan calculator and the upfront cash through the stamp duty calculator before you sign anything.
How much you can borrow is also boxed in by income. Your total monthly debt cannot exceed 55% of gross income under the Total Debt Servicing Ratio, and for an HDB flat the home loan alone cannot exceed 30% under the Mortgage Servicing Ratio. Banks stress-test both at a 4% interest floor even though real rates are lower, so a high valuation does not automatically mean a bigger loan if your income cannot carry it.
A common mix-up trips up first-time resale buyers: people assume COV counts towards the 25% downpayment. It does not. The downpayment is a slice of the lower of price or valuation that your loan does not cover. COV sits entirely outside that calculation, on top of it, and always in cash.
Take a flat valued at $620,000 that you agree to buy for $650,000. Your loan and downpayment are both worked out off the $620,000 valuation, not the $650,000 you agreed. At 75% loan-to-value the loan is $465,000 and the downpayment is $155,000 (CPF, plus at least 5% cash on a bank loan). The $30,000 COV is a separate cash payment that does nothing to reduce either figure. So your real cash hurdle at completion is the cash share of the downpayment plus the full COV, not one or the other.
Plan the COV as its own line in your budget before you make an offer in a hot estate. Run the affordability side through the HDB affordability calculator and the loan side through the HDB loan calculator, then add the COV cash on top of whatever those return.
Valuation does not only cap your CPF and loan. It also sets the floor for Buyer's Stamp Duty (BSD). IRAS charges BSD on the higher of the purchase price or the market value, so if you pay COV the duty is worked out on the price you agreed, and if the flat values above your price the duty is worked out on the valuation. Either way you pay BSD on the bigger of the two numbers.
BSD is tiered. On a residential purchase the rate climbs from 1% on the first $180,000 up to 6% on the slice above $3 million, under the rates in force since 15 February 2023. Most resale flats fall in the lower bands, so the effective rate is modest, but COV nudges the figure up because it lifts the base. On a $650,000 flat with $30,000 COV, the BSD is charged on $650,000, not the $620,000 valuation, which adds a few hundred dollars over a duty figure pegged to the valuation alone.
BSD can be paid from your CPF Ordinary Account, but it is due within 14 days of exercising the OTP, so it lands early in the process. Work the exact figure with the stamp duty calculator, and read up on Buyer's Stamp Duty if you are buying for the first time. Second-timers who already own property also face Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty on the same higher-of base.
| Portion of price or market value | BSD rate |
|---|---|
| First $180,000 | 1% |
| Next $180,000 | 2% |
| Next $640,000 | 3% |
| Next $500,000 | 4% |
| Next $1,500,000 | 5% |
| Amount above $3,000,000 | 6% |
Say the valuation lands well below what your own research told you the flat was worth. Your options are narrow, and none of them lets you simply ask for the number to be raised. HDB does not run a formal appeal channel on a Request for Value the way you might appeal a property tax assessment. The valuation you receive is the figure your CPF and loan are pegged to.
What you can do is decide what to do with the gap. You can accept the COV and pay it in cash, in which case nothing about the OTP changes. You can go back to the seller and renegotiate the price or the COV; if you agree a new price you redo the OTP, and a fresh Request for Value follows. Or you let the OTP lapse after 21 days, forfeit only the option fee, and walk away. A second valuation is possible after a renegotiated OTP, but it carries real risk: a different valuer can come back lower, and you are then bound by the lower figure with no route back to the first one.
This is exactly why doing the transaction research before you sign matters so much. The valuation is hard to move after the fact, so your only real bargaining power is in the price you agree at the start.
Because you commit to a price before you see the valuation, your defence is research. The valuer leans on recent transacted prices of comparable flats, so you can build a rough estimate from the same data.
Start with the official source. HDB publishes every resale transaction by registration date on data.gov.sg, searchable by town, flat type and street, from January 2017 onwards. Filter for the same block or street, the same flat type, and sales in the last 6 months, then adjust up or down for floor level, lease and renovation. Private portals layer their own valuation tools on top of the same HDB data, which is handy for a sanity check but should not replace the underlying transactions.
The HDB Resale Price Index is the official benchmark for the market as a whole. In the Q1 2026 flash estimate it stands at 203.4, down 0.1% on the quarter, the first quarterly decline since Q2 2019. That follows a flat Q4 2025 and full-year 2025 growth of 2.9%, the slowest since 2019 and a sharp cool-down from the 9.7% jump HDB recorded for 2024.
A softer index does not mean cheap flats. There were 412 resale transactions at $1 million or above in Q1 2026, up 17.7% from 350 the quarter before, concentrated in central and mature towns. Five-room flats hit median prices of about $1.1 million in Toa Payoh, $1.09 million in Ang Mo Kio and $1.085 million in Bukit Merah. The market is splitting: prime, well-located flats keep setting records while the broad index drifts sideways, which is why valuation and COV are back in play in the hottest pockets.
If you are weighing resale against a new build, the price you pay for moving in now is the gap over a subsidised flat. A 2026 build-to-order flat is cheaper and comes with grants, but you wait years and face balloting odds. Resale costs more upfront and may carry COV, but you choose the exact unit and move in within months. The BTO versus resale comparison lays out the full trade-off, and the property guide covers grants and eligibility.
The reason the index finally dipped comes down to supply. About 13,500 flats reach the end of their five-year Minimum Occupation Period in 2026, when owners are first allowed to sell, roughly double the unusually thin year of around 6,970 flats that hit MOP in 2025. More flats freed up to sell at once eases the squeeze that pushed prices up through 2024.
The supply is lumpy by town. Punggol, Queenstown and Tampines have the largest batches of flats crossing MOP this year, so buyers in those estates have more choice and a little more room to push back on price and COV. And the wave does not stop in 2026: the projected MOP pipeline rises again towards 2027 and 2028, which is part of why the market mood has shifted from a sprint to a walk.
Demand is not collapsing, though. Four-room flats remain the workhorse of the market, taking the largest share of resale deals, with three-room and five-room flats next and executive flats a small slice. Where a flat sits matters as much as its type: well-connected mature-estate units still draw competition and COV, while newer flats in non-mature towns are where the extra supply is landing. The split is why a single headline index number tells you less than the transactions for your exact block.
Valuation sets the ceiling for CPF and loan, but several costs sit outside it and have to be planned for separately. These are easy to underestimate when you are focused on the headline price.
Budget for the COV gap first if you are buying in a hot town, then layer on the standard transaction costs. Buyer's stamp duty applies on the higher of price or valuation, legal fees run a few thousand dollars, and the resale levy may apply if you are a second-timer who took a subsidised flat before.
If you previously bought a subsidised flat from HDB and are now buying a second subsidised flat, you owe a resale levy. It claws back part of the housing subsidy so the same household does not benefit twice. The levy does not apply if you are buying a resale flat on the open market with no fresh CPF Housing Grant and no second subsidised flat; it bites mainly on second-timers taking a new flat or a grant.
For anyone who sold their first subsidised flat from 3 March 2006, the levy is a fixed amount set by the flat type you first owned, not a percentage. Singles Grant recipients pay half the listed amount. Owners who sold their first flat before 3 March 2006 fall under the older rule, where the levy was a percentage of the resale price or 90% of the valuation, whichever was lower.
The levy is not paid in cash up front the way COV is; HDB deducts it when you collect keys to the new flat, and it can come from sale proceeds or CPF. It still belongs in your sums, because a $40,000 or $50,000 levy reshapes how much you actually have for the next place. If a grant is in play, read the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant rules, and check that you have cleared the Minimum Occupation Period on your current flat before you commit.
| First subsidised flat type | Resale levy (household) | Singles Grant recipient |
|---|---|---|
| 2-room | $15,000 | $7,500 |
| 3-room | $30,000 | $15,000 |
| 4-room | $40,000 | $20,000 |
| 5-room | $45,000 | $22,500 |
| Executive | $50,000 | $25,000 |
No. Since March 2014, HDB only values a flat after you and the seller agree a price and the seller grants the Option to Purchase. You then pay $120 for the Request for Value and get the figure about 10 working days later. To protect yourself, research recent transacted prices on data.gov.sg before you commit.
COV is the amount you agree to pay above the official HDB valuation. Because CPF and your loan are both capped at the valuation, the COV portion must be paid in cash, on top of your downpayment. If a flat valued at $600,000 is bought at $620,000, the $20,000 difference is COV.
The Request for Value costs $120 including GST, submitted through My Flat Dashboard by the next working day after the Option Date. The outcome is usually ready within about 10 working days and stays valid for 3 months from the day it appears in your dashboard.
The gap becomes COV that you pay in cash, since CPF and your loan only go up to the valuation. You must wait for the valuation before exercising the OTP, so you can decide whether to proceed, renegotiate, or walk away and forfeit only the option fee.
They follow the lower of the two. Your loan is capped at 75% of the lower of price or valuation, and CPF Ordinary Account usage is capped at the valuation. Pay above valuation and the extra is cash you fund yourself.
Use HDB's resale transaction data on data.gov.sg, filtered to the same block, flat type and last 6 months, then adjust for floor level, remaining lease and condition. Property portals offer valuation tools built on the same data, useful as a cross-check rather than the final word.
The Resale Price Index dipped 0.1% in the Q1 2026 flash estimate to 203.4, the first quarterly fall since Q2 2019, after 2.9% growth in 2025. The overall market is flat, but prime, well-located flats keep selling above $1 million, with 412 such deals in Q1 2026.
No. The downpayment is a share of the lower of price or valuation that your loan does not cover, and CPF can fund most of it. COV is separate cash on top of the downpayment, since neither your loan nor CPF can be used for it. Plan for both the cash share of the downpayment and the full COV at completion.
Yes. Buyer's Stamp Duty is charged on the higher of the purchase price or the market value. If you pay COV, the duty is worked out on the agreed price; if the flat values above your price, it is worked out on the valuation. BSD runs from 1% on the first $180,000 up to 6% above $3 million, and can be paid from CPF within 14 days of exercising the OTP.
There is no formal appeal channel on a Request for Value. You can accept the COV, renegotiate the price with the seller and redo the OTP, or let the OTP lapse and forfeit only the option fee. A second valuation after a new OTP is possible but risky, because a different valuer can return a lower figure that you are then bound by.
For first subsidised flats sold from 3 March 2006, the levy is a fixed amount by flat type: $15,000 for 2-room, $30,000 for 3-room, $40,000 for 4-room, $45,000 for 5-room and $50,000 for Executive. Singles Grant recipients pay half. HDB deducts it when you collect keys to your second subsidised flat, from sale proceeds or CPF rather than cash up front.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.