01.
Sale proceeds
What the unit realistically sells for, taken from transactions in the project itself and comparable sales within 500 metres to a kilometre, not from an asking price.
Client advisory
The arithmetic happens before the viewing.
Most property advice is a preference dressed up as a fact. This page is what I check, in what order, and what the transaction record actually says about each step.
01 · Will it grow
Entry price is the signal. Almost everything else is a story.
I tested this on matched buy and sell pairs, meaning the same owner buying and later selling the same unit, rather than on a price index. 13,732 private non-landed pairs and 99,705 HDB pairs from URA and HDB caveat records.
The test that survived everything else: the unit's psf against the median psf of its own district in the same year. Buy more than 20 percent below it and the record shows 5.6 percent a year, an 88.4 percent chance of making money, and a median profit of 155,000 dollars. Buy more than 20 percent above and it falls to 2.9 percent, 79.0 percent, and 80,000 dollars. It moves in the same direction across all five bands.
What did not survive: freehold, high floor, prime postcode and large unit size all went flat or slightly negative once entry price was held still. Raw numbers say 99 year leases beat freehold, 5.1 percent against 3.7. That is not a tenure finding. The 99 year units simply went in cheaper, at 1,377 psf against 1,666. Hold price still and the gap collapses to under one point, and freehold actually wins the win rate in every band. Neither of the two standard pitches is true.
The weakest corner of the whole dataset, and I would rather you heard it from me: the priciest third of CCR resale returned 0.6 percent a year with a 55.5 percent win rate across 723 pairs. That is close to a coin flip.
02 · Upgrading
Whether you can move up without topping up cash is an arithmetic question.
It is not a motivational one. Either the numbers clear or they do not, and you deserve to know which before anyone books you a showflat appointment.
02.
The CPF refund
What goes back into CPF with accrued interest, and what that leaves you in actual cash. This is the step most people are surprised by.
03.
The loan you qualify for
Income, age, existing commitments and the loan tenure that follows from them. The bank decides this, so we work to their arithmetic and not to a wish.
04.
The timing gap
Selling and buying rarely land on the same day. The gap between them is where the cash is needed, and it is planned or it bites.
Run those four and the answer is a number, not an opinion. Sometimes the number says wait a year. I would rather tell you that than sell you a move you regret, because the version of this business I want is the one where you call me again in five years.
03 · Sourcing
A shortlist built from land cost, not from a brochure.
Before a showflat opens, most of its price is already decided. I matched 39 government land sale sites to the projects built on them and the land alone is 45.4 percent of the eventual launch price at the median, in a range of 36 to 56 percent. Land bought in 2026 is the dearest on record, which puts a floor under what the next wave of launches can charge.
That matters because of the second finding. Across 584 new launch pairs held longer than three years, not one was ever priced more than 20 percent below its own district median. Resale managed it 658 times. The honest reading is not that new launches are bad. It is that they are almost always sold at the expensive end of their own market, and by the entry price law above, that is the part that costs you.
Above 2,050 psf the new launch actually wins, 3.24 percent a year against 2.17. Under 1,700 psf a new launch returned 4.77 percent, which is exactly the whole resale market rather than better than it, with better odds and a bigger cheque. So the question is never launch or resale. It is what you are paying relative to the street.
One finding I will not round off: executive condo resale came out strongest in the whole study, 7.45 percent a year across 189 pairs, every one of which made money, with the worst outcome still a 35,000 dollar gain and a median entry of 1,031 psf. Held at the same entry price under 1,200 psf it still beat private resale.
That result is about EC resale only. There is no meaningful record for new EC launches at this cut, three pairs, so I will not let a 189 pair resale number be read as what an EC launch returns. If anyone quotes you that figure for a new EC, they have either not read it or they are hoping you have not.
What you get from me is the shortlist that comes out of this: what the land under it cost, where it has to price, what the street next door is transacting at, and the ones I think you should skip.
Sources for this page: URA and HDB caveat records and URA government land sale awards, analysed on matched buy and sell pairs. Sample sizes are stated beside each finding. Past transactions describe what happened to other owners and are not a forecast for your unit. Nothing on this page is financial advice.
Straight answers
The five questions I get asked most.
Should I buy a new launch or a resale?
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On the record, resale grew faster: 4.77 percent a year against 3.04, across 2,777 matched pairs held longer than three years. But that gap is about price, not product. Only 10.3 percent of new launches were ever priced below their own district median and none was more than 20 percent below, while resale managed that 658 times. Compare the two at the same price per square foot and above 2,050 psf the new launch actually wins. The real question is what you are paying relative to the street, not which lane you are in.
Does freehold hold its value better than a 99 year lease?
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Not in the way it is usually sold. Raw numbers say 99 year units grew faster, 5.1 percent against 3.7, but those units simply went in cheaper, 1,377 psf against 1,666. Hold the entry price still and the gap collapses to under one point, and freehold wins the win rate in every price band. Neither standard pitch survives the test, so neither should decide your purchase on its own.
What actually decides whether a property grows?
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The price paid on day one, measured against the median psf of the same district in the same year. Bought more than 20 percent below it: 5.6 percent a year and 88.4 percent made money. More than 20 percent above: 2.9 percent and 79.0 percent. Freehold status, floor height, prime postcode and unit size all went flat or negative once entry price was held still.
Can I upgrade without putting in more cash?
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It is an arithmetic question with four parts: what the unit realistically sells for, what has to go back into CPF with accrued interest, the loan you will actually qualify for, and the timing gap between selling and buying. Run those four and the answer is a number rather than an opinion. Sometimes that number says wait a year.
Is a bigger unit the better investment?
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No. Unit size behaves as a hump rather than a straight line, with both ends of the range punished. The sharper risk is a quiet project: under about eight sales a year there is nothing to price against and no queue of buyers to sell into.