Resale private homes in Singapore have made more money for their owners than new launches, The Business Times reported on 10 October 2026. Real estate researcher Vairavan Shanmugam looked at more than 630,000 transactions from 1995 to June 2026 and found a median annualised return of 3.7% for resale units, against 2.7% for new homes. If you are weighing a new launch vs resale condo, this post answers the questions the study raises: why new homes earned less, where the gap was widest, when new units came out ahead, and what to check before you commit to either.
Vairavan, a doctoral student, compiled the figures for The Business Times (BT). He studied more than 630,000 transactions from 1995 to June 2026. He looked at homes that were bought and later sold again, and counted only those held for at least three years.
Resale units that changed hands again earned a median annualised return of 3.7%. New private homes earned 2.7%. BT said resales have made more money than new non-landed private homes throughout the past three decades.
The table pulls the main numbers together. All of them are as BT reported them.
| Measure | New sale | Resale |
|---|---|---|
| Median annualised return, 1995 to June 2026 | 2.7% | 3.7% |
| Price per sq ft in the CCR, past five years | 41% higher than resale | The base |
| CCR homes sold at a loss, past decade | About 28% | 14.9% |
| Median return, older leasehold resales (under 70 years of lease left in 2021) against new sales | 17% | 23.7% |
BT pointed to the premium built into a new build's price. In the Core Central Region (CCR), new homes cost 41% more per square foot than resale units over the past five years. Developers pay heavily for land, construction and marketing, and those costs go into launch prices.
BT put the higher resale returns down to that lower starting price. A resale buyer pays less to begin with than a new-launch buyer does.
You can see what earlier buyers paid in a project from URA's caveat records, and our guide to reading URA caveat data on lodged property transactions walks through them. URA says lodging a caveat is voluntary, and caveats for units bought straight from a developer usually come in a few months after the purchase, so its REALIS database may not show every unit a developer has sold.
URA defines the CCR as postal districts 9, 10 and 11, the Downtown Core Planning Area and Sentosa.
Vairavan's research found that over the past decade, about 28% of new-sale homes in the CCR were sold at a loss. For CCR resales over the same period, the figure was 14.9%.
BT reported losses on CCR new launches of between 22.4% and 35.6% in that decade. It said the losses ran across the period and did not cluster in a handful of bad years.
In parts, yes. BT said the resale edge comes partly from differences in size, tenure and location.
Over the past two years, average returns on new-sale homes were higher than resale returns for leasehold units above 1,500 sq ft. For units of 700 to 1,000 sq ft, resales still did clearly better, with a lead of up to 12.4 percentage points.
Older leasehold resales kept a smaller lead. Units with less than 70 years left on the lease in 2021 had a median return of 23.7%, against 17% for new sales.
Use our private property sale proceeds calculator to see what selling a unit would leave you in cash.
BT said the market may be heading towards a point where many buyers knowingly pay for lifestyle and daily use, not for the highest return.
These are the advantages of buying new that BT listed:
URA's guide to buying an uncompleted home sets out the steps. The developer must give you set information on the project and the unit before it accepts your booking fee, and the booking fee gets you an Option to Purchase.
Licensed developers must use the standard Sale and Purchase Agreement, which cannot be changed without the Controller of Housing's approval. Read its terms before you sign.
A progress payment falls due when the Temporary Occupation Permit (TOP) is issued, and the developer tells you how to collect your keys once you have paid it. You then have a 1-year defects liability period to report defects in your unit and the housing project for the developer to fix.
If you are weighing the same question for an HDB flat, use the BTO vs resale HDB calculator.
For a private home, URA's buying guide lists these checks:
In a study of more than 630,000 transactions from 1995 to June 2026, reported by The Business Times, resale private homes had a median annualised return of 3.7%, against 2.7% for new homes.
The Business Times reported that developers' land, construction and marketing costs push up launch prices. In the Core Central Region, new homes cost 41% more per square foot than resales over the past five years.
Yes. Over the past two years, average returns on new-sale homes were higher than resale returns for leasehold units larger than 1,500 sq ft, The Business Times reported.
URA says that after you collect your keys, you can report defects in your unit and the housing project to the developer for rectification within the 1-year defects liability period.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change, so verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.
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