Resale prices fell again in Q3. Which flats fell?

Flats with 58 years or fewer left lost 3.7% in a year. Flats with 89 or more barely moved.

Glen Eunice 20 October 2026

Line chart of like-for-like HDB resale prices since Q3 2024. Older flats, with 58 years or fewer left, and newer flats, with 89 or more, both rose about 5% to Q3 2025. Since then older flats fell 3.7% while newer flats fell 0.2%.

We’re still looking for a flat, mostly newer ones. HDB keeps saying resale prices are falling, but it doesn’t feel like it. Houses still feel very expensive. So I went through HDB’s sales data to see which flats actually got cheaper. It’s almost all the older ones.

HDB’s early estimate says prices fell 0.2% from July to September. It’s the third fall in a row, but they’re tiny. Prices are only 0.6% below last year’s peak and still about 27% higher than at the start of 2022. More flats sold than a year ago too, 7,528. HDB’s final numbers come out at the end of October.

HDB's index is still 27% above early 2022, but 0.6% below last year's peak

Resale Price IndexQ3 2026 flash estimate

HDB's Resale Price Index, Q1 2009 = 100.HDB via data.gov.sg (to Q2 2026); HDB flash estimate for Q3 2026, released 1 Oct 2026.

Which flats fell?

That 0.2% is every flat in Singapore lumped together. So I compared the same type of flat in the same block, this July to September against a year ago, and grouped them by how many years of lease they have left. The older the flat, the more it fell.

Last year every age group rose about 5%. This year, the less lease left, the more prices fell

Last yearThis year: fellWithin 0.5%: barely moved95% range

Like-for-like price change by years of lease left in 2026. Last year is Q3 2024 to Q3 2025; this year Q3 2025 to Q3 2026. Within 3-, 4- and 5-rooms, the gap between the oldest and newest flats was under a point last year and about 2 to 5 points this year. Hover or tap an age group for each flat type.HDB resale prices on data.gov.sg. Our calculation: same block and flat type, adjusted for size and storey.

For the oldest flats, the 3.7% drop is about $15,000 off a typical 3-room ($400,000) and $20,000 off a 4-room ($550,000).

Isn’t that just the lease running down?

Partly, old flats do lose value faster as the lease runs out. But that didn’t stop them rising last year. They went up about 5%, same as newer flats (the outlined bars above). The gap only opened after the peak, and it’s widened every quarter since.

Which towns fell most?

Jurong East, Jurong West, Yishun and Ang Mo Kio fell the most. But every town has old and new flats mixed in. Split them up, and in all 13 towns I could check, the old ones fell more. In Queenstown, older flats fell 5.6% and newer ones went up 2.5%.

In every town I could compare, older flats fell more than newer ones

Older: lease began before 1996Newer: 1996 or later

Like-for-like price change, Q3 2025 to Q3 2026, in the 13 towns with at least 60 sales of both older and newer flats, sorted by how much older flats fell. Older means 68 years or fewer left. Small changes may be noise: hover or tap a town for its 95% ranges and sales.HDB resale prices on data.gov.sg.

Newer flats depend more on where they are. In Woodlands, Yishun and Punggol they fell about 2%, and in Sengkang and the west about 1%. In the east they held, and near the city they went up.

Newer flats rose near the city and fell in the north and west

Too few newer-flat sales

Like-for-like price change, Q3 2025 to Q3 2026, for flats with 69 years or more left (lease began in 1996 or later). Towns are URA planning areas; Kallang/Whampoa is shown as Kallang. Faded towns with a dotted edge could be no change: their 95% range includes zero. Hatched towns had fewer than 60 such sales. Hover or tap a town.HDB resale prices on data.gov.sg; URA Master Plan 2019 planning areas.

Then why did the median price go up?

It went from $630,000 in Q2 to $638,000 because more 5-rooms and executives sold this quarter and fewer 3-rooms, so the middle sale was a bigger flat. Each flat type on its own barely moved.

More big flats sold, adding about $10,000 to the median. Prices themselves slipped $2,000

How the median sale price got from Q2 to Q3 2026. The first step prices Q2's sales as if they had Q3's mix of flat types; the second is what's left, the change in prices. Done in the other order, the steps come out the same: +$10,000 and −$2,000. The per-type changes are each type's median.HDB resale prices on data.gov.sg, by registration date.

Same with the record 596 million-dollar flats. Q3 had 20% more sales than Q2, but it’s still about 8 in every 100 sales, same as last quarter.

A record 596 flats sold for $1 million or more, but the same 8 in 100 as Q2

Share of resale sales at $1 million or more each quarter. All but 7 of Q3 2026's 596 were 4-rooms (241), 5-rooms (202) or executives (146). Hover or tap a quarter for its count.HDB resale prices on data.gov.sg, by registration date.

Why are older flats falling now?

HDB says it’s because more flats are hitting their MOP, and there are more BTO and SBF flats coming. But flats just past MOP, 5 to 7 years old, were actually a smaller share of sales: 11%, down from 13% a year ago. It could be the shorter BTO waits, or private owners not having to wait 15 months any more since July. I can’t tell from the sales.

So should we wait?

I don’t think so. The newer flats we’re looking at barely moved this year, and near the city some went up. Waiting another quarter probably doesn’t get us a cheaper flat, so I’d rather buy now.

How I worked this out

I used HDB’s record of every resale since 2017 on data.gov.sg, downloaded on 19 October 2026. I compared flats in the same block, of the same type and model, adjusting for floor area and storey. HDB’s own index adjusts for the year of lease each flat loses and mine doesn’t, so mine reads about a point lower over a year: a 1.7% fall against HDB’s 0.6%. The useful part is older against newer. Q3 sales are still being registered, so I have 7,411 against HDB’s 7,528.