Market Updates
Notes on the Singapore landed market.
Straightforward observations from Rita's day-to-day work in landed property. No hype, no forecasts dressed up as facts.
What these updates cover.
What is moving
Which landed segments are seeing genuine buyer interest, and which are quiet.
Pricing in practice
How asking prices and closing prices are relating to each other in real transactions.
Buyer behaviour
What upgraders and investors are prioritising when they walk through a landed home.
A build-to-rent project near Orchard, and the demand behind it
The Business Times, 29 June 2026.
Royal Group is planning a long-stay serviced apartment project at 11 Claymore Road, just off Orchard, at an all-in cost of about S$185 million to S$190 million. It would hold around 100 two-bedroom apartments over 18 storeys, with the group looking at monthly rents of roughly S$7,500 to S$8,000.
What catches my eye is that this is built to rent, not to sell. When a group puts that kind of money into leasing rather than selling, it is signalling where it sees steady demand, here from professionals and relocating families who want a proper home rather than a hotel room.
This is a serviced apartment, not a landed home, so I will not stretch the link. For a landed owner near town the honest read is narrow but useful: well-placed space in the central districts holds its pull, whoever ends up paying for it.
What June's BTO demand means if landed is your next move
The Straits Times, 25 June 2026.
The latest HDB Build-To-Order launch drew strong interest. Across five towns, 6,952 flats were on offer and the overall application rate came to 3.2, with four-room flats at Woodgrove Acres in Woodlands pulling close to four first-timers for every unit. Two-room flexi flats were popular too, mostly with seniors and singles.
I read these numbers as the first rung of a long journey. I started on an HDB flat myself before moving into landed, so I know how a first home sets up everything that follows. The families buying now are building the equity that later pays for the move up.
If you already own your HDB and are weighing a move to landed, this is a healthy sign. Strong demand for that first home is part of what keeps the whole chain of upgraders moving, and that includes the step up to landed.
A cooler industry mood, and why good landed homes still move
The Business Times, 24 June 2026.
A quarterly NUS survey found senior real estate executives turned more cautious at the start of 2026. The overall sentiment reading slipped below the neutral 5.0 line to 4.9, down from 5.8 the quarter before, as worries about inflation and interest rates grew. Homes were the bright spot, with suburban residential leading the mood while offices, shops and industrial space weakened.
I read a survey like this as the temperature of the room, not the value of any one house. A more careful mood among executives does not change what a well-placed landed home is worth to the family that wants it.
When the wider market turns cautious, well-presented and fairly priced homes still find buyers. If you are selling, that is when pricing and presentation earn their keep. If you are buying, a quieter mood can mean fewer people bidding against you.
The stamp duty squeeze on landlords, and the part that touches landed
The Business Times, 23 June 2026.
A columnist made the case that the Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty, or ABSD, is cooling investment buying, so there may be fewer private homes to rent ahead. The figures: a citizen pays 20 per cent ABSD on a second home and 30 per cent on a third, while a foreigner who is not a permanent resident pays 60 per cent. Even so, the private home rental index rose 1.8 per cent over the past year and sits 55.3 per cent above its end-2020 level.
As someone who owns property here and abroad, I look at this as an investor as well as an agent. The duty does its job of protecting first-home buyers, but it also thins the pool of people willing to be landlords.
This piece is really about condos. For landed owners the direct pull is smaller, yet the same stamp-duty math shapes when investors buy and hold, so if a second property is on your mind, factor that cost in early.
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