Drink your kopi. Listen to this.
You’d think with borrowing costs choking us and property taxes climbing, Singaporeans would finally stop buying houses. But no. We are absolutely obsessed. The numbers are out, and despite shrinking returns, a massive 64% of people still rank property as their number one investment.
Beating stocks. Beating bonds. Beating crypto.
Why? Because in Singapore, we don’t trust abstract numbers on a screen. We want concrete. We want something we can touch, rent out, and eventually pass down.
Look at how buyers are splitting their targets right now. It tells a crazy story:
- The Mass Market: 41% are hunting for HDB flats.
- The Private Dream: 39% are aiming for private condos. And for this crowd, the sweet spot is S$1 million to S$2 million.
- The High Rollers: 7% are looking at landed homes. And get this—a third of them are aiming past the S$5 million mark. S$5 million! That’s not just buying a house. That’s building a dynasty.
How are we paying for all this? Not just by begging the banks. Actually, 59% are dumping in cold hard cash or funneling proceeds from selling their previous place. It’s the classic Singaporean property ladder. You don’t just leap straight to a private condo. You buy a BTO, wait out your 5-year MOP, sell it for a pot of gold, and roll that cash into a S$2 million condo. It’s a system. It’s as calculated and ruthless as volunteering for two years just to secure your kid a spot in a top primary school.
And what do buyers actually care about when picking a unit? Location.
84% demand to be near the MRT. Over 60% want hawker centres and NTUC FairPrice within walking distance. A developer can give you gold-plated toilet bowls and a massive infinity pool, but if it takes a 15-minute sweaty feeder bus ride just to reach the MRT, nobody cares. Convenience is our true currency. Singaporeans will happily pay a S$200,000 premium just to shave ten minutes off their morning commute to Raffles Place.
But let’s be real. It’s getting vicious out there.
- The ABSD Wall: 32% of potential buyers are completely blocked by the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty. It’s the ultimate deterrent. It feels exactly like paying COE for a car, except it’s a tax on your retirement plan.
- The Interest Rate Bite: Rising borrowing costs are scaring off another 15%. Monthly installments are getting painfully heavy.
If you’re a young couple right now? The private market feels like a VIP club with a S$2 million cover charge.
That is exactly why the government is flooding the market with 19,600 BTO flats in 2026. And we aren’t just talking about ulu areas. We are talking Ang Mo Kio. Bukit Merah. Tampines. If you can successfully ballot for one of these prime BTOs, you haven’t just found a home. You’ve basically struck Toto.
So, why do we keep buying despite the squeeze? Because the Singaporean dream hasn’t changed. The interest rates go up, the ABSD gets tighter, but at the end of the day, we still want our own slice of this very small island.
