HDB Resale Prices Fall For A Second Straight Quarter — But Million-Dollar Flat Sales Just Hit A Record High

The overall price trend in the HDB resale market is on a downward trajectory, but the number of flats that were recently sold for $1 million and higher just climbed to a new high.

According to the latest HDB Resale Price Index (RPI), published on July 24, resale HDB prices fell 0.3% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) to 202.8 in 2Q2026. This follows a 0.1% q-o-q dip in 1Q2026.

It is the first time since 2Q2019 that the index has posted two straight quarterly declines, and with the index essentially unchanged from the 202.9 reading a year ago, the second quarter of this year also marks the first time since end-2019 that the RPI has stayed flat on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis.

The latest housing data points to a market moderating on two fronts: overall price growth has stalled, but transactions at the very top of the price range are becoming more common.

Wong Siew Ying, head of research and content at PropNex Realty, frames the reading as a continuation of a longer trend rather than a new shock. “The second quarter of 2026 further reflects the HDB resale market’s gradual transition from strong price appreciation to price stability,” she says.

The HDB resale index is now about 0.4% below its peak in 3Q2025, which is still the highest reading on record.

Not every flat type is moving in the same direction

The 0.3% dip is an aggregate of flat types in the secondary market. An analysis of HDB resale transaction data shows the median price of two-room flats rose 1.6% q-o-q in 2Q2026, and executive flats rose 2.1% q-o-q.

On the other hand, the price of three-room and five-room flats moved the other way, recording quarterly declines of 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively. Meanwhile, four-room flats, which make up close to half of all resale transactions, saw relatively flat price growth of 0.3% q-o-q.

Christine Sun, chief researcher and strategist at Realion (OrangeTee & ETC) Group, attributes the overall softening to a mix of intense competition from the Build-To-Order (BTO) market, a weaker hiring outlook, and prevailing macroeconomic uncertainty. 

Overall resale prices posted their second consecutive quarterly decline this year on the back of falling average prices across many towns, amounting to a 0.4% dip for the first half of 2026, a sharp reversal from the 2.5% and 4.2% price gains recorded in the first halves of 2025 and 2024, respectively.

The differing performance of the various flat types echoes what happened in the first quarter, when declines were concentrated at the two extremes of the size range while the three- and four-room segments held up. That pattern has now partially reversed for three-room flats, which suggests the softening is spreading rather than settling into a fixed pattern.

Resale volumes rose from last quarter, but this is still the weakest 2Q since the Covid-19 pandemic

A total of 6,396 resale applications were registered in 2Q2026, up 1.8% from the 6,285 transactions which were recorded in the first three months of this year.

Resale volumes increased across every flat type, with two-room flats up 3.6% q-o-q, five-room flats up 2.9% q-o-q, three-room flats up 2.6% q-o-q, executive flats up 1.9% q-o-q, and four-room flats up 0.5% q-o-q.

Number of Resale Applications by Flat Type

On a yearly basis, the moderation in the resale market becomes clearer. 

Total resale volume fell 9.9% y-o-y against the 7,102 units sold in 2Q2025, turning 2Q2026 into the lowest second-quarter transaction count since 3,426 resale flats changed hands in 2Q2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Singapore.

Overall, the total resale volume in the HDB market over the first six months of this year was 12,681 units, a yearly decline of 7.4% compared to the 13,692 units transacted in the same period last year.

Buyers gaining ground against sellers is a large part of the story behind the softer readings.

 “Buyers may now find themselves with more bargaining power after several years of a sellers’ market. That said, sellers need not slash their asking prices drastically to secure a sale, provided that their flats are valued realistically without excessive Cash Over Valuation (COV),” says Eugene Lim, key executive officer of ERA Singapore.

Central Toa Payoh and Queenstown are pulling further away from the rest of the market

Median resale prices by town show the same geographic split that appeared in the first three months of this year, but this time with greater consistency.

For four-room flats, Queenstown’s median price climbed to $1.04 million and Toa Payoh’s held at $1.02 million, both showing little change from the prior quarter’s million-dollar readings. Bukit Merah followed at $944,000 and Kallang/Whampoa at $918,900.

At the other end, Jurong West ($530,000), Woodlands ($550,000), and Yishun ($545,000) sat roughly half of Queenstown’s level for the same flat type.

The Central Area has crossed the million-dollar mark again since its last milestone in 3Q2025, with the median four-room resale price hitting nearly $1.2 million this quarter. “This return to seven-figure territory was not unexpected, as median prices for four-room flats in centrally located towns like Toa Payoh and Queenstown had reached the million-dollar mark last quarter. This could have raised pricing expectations for similar units in the Central Area,” says Lim.

The five-room segment tells a different story. Queenstown, Clementi, and Toa Payoh, the same towns leading the four-room table, each had too few five-room resale transactions in 2Q2026 for HDB to publish a representative median. Among towns with enough resale volume, Bishan ($978,000) and Kallang/Whampoa ($976,300) topped the chart, while Jurong West ($633,500), Choa Chu Kang ($662,000), and Sembawang ($644,400) sat at the other end, a gap of roughly $330,000 between the highest and lowest median.

“However, the impact has not been uniform. In popular towns, such as Toa Payoh and Queenstown, the influx of newer MOP flats has also expanded the pool of homes likely to reach the million-dollar mark, creating a more bifurcated resale landscape,” notes Lim. 

With median resale prices for four-room flats holding at the million-dollar mark in Toa Payoh and Queenstown for a second consecutive quarter, that level increasingly looks like a new pricing floor for those towns rather than a temporary peak.

Median Resale Prices by Town and Flat Type in 2Q 2026

Dashes (“-”) indicate no resale transactions in the quarter. Asterisks (” * “) refer to cases where there are fewer than 20 resale transactions in the quarter for the particular town and flat type. The figures are rounded to the nearest hundred dollars. Source: HDB

Million-dollar transactions hit a new high even as the index falls

A total of 491 resale flats changed hands for $1 million or above in 2Q2026, up 19.5% from the 411 million-dollar deals in 1Q2026 and 18.3% higher than the 415 recorded in 2Q2025. Million-dollar deals made up 7.7% of all resale transactions in the last quarter, up from 6.5% in 1Q2026.

Four-room flats led with 212 million-dollar transactions, followed by five-room flats (183) and executive flats (93); two 3-room flats and one multi-generation flat also crossed the threshold. The count is a new quarterly record, surpassing the previous high of 480 set in 3Q2025.

Toa Payoh again recorded the most million-dollar deals at 66, followed by Queenstown (65), Bukit Merah (64), Kallang/Whampoa (41), and Ang Mo Kio (38). Bedok and Tampines, both mature but non-central towns, each recorded 27 such deals, all involving larger flat types. 

“These buyers were likely motivated by the idea of owning a larger home, which could outweigh the trade-off of living farther from the city centre,” says Lim.

Newer flats accounted for the bulk of the segment: 251 of the 491 deals, about 51%, involved units aged 15 years or below. ERA’s research shows a further 121 units, close to a quarter of the total, were between five and seven years old, the age band immediately after a project’s Minimum Occupation Period (MOP). Toa Payoh recorded the most of such deals within that band, with 38 four- and five-room units at Bidadari Park Drive and Alkaff Crescent, near the newly MOP-ed Alkaff CourtView and Alkaff LakeView, selling between $1 million and $1.38 million. 

Mohan Sandrasegeran, head of research and data analytics at SRI, cautions, “this should not be interpreted as evidence of broad based price growth across the resale market. Instead, the increase largely reflects continued demand for a relatively small segment of premium flats with exceptional attributes, particularly those located in mature estates or offering larger floor areas and longer remaining leases.”

Median prices across most flat types held steady or eased in 2Q2026, consistent with the falling RPI, which suggests that the rising number of million-dollar flats is a sign that buyers are still willing to pay up for a specific kind of flat even as the wider market cools.

Twice the number of MOP completions as last year could hit the market in 2026

A broad-based perspective of the HDB resale market suggests that the driving force behind the moderation in the market has not changed from last quarter. An estimated 13,480 HDB flats are due to reach their MOP in 2026, a spike compared to the 6,973 MOP flats in 2025.

Five towns account for about 80% of this year’s completions, led by Punggol (3,222 units, 23.9%), Queenstown (2,405, 17.8%), Tampines (2,133, 15.8%), Toa Payoh (1,594, 11.8%), and Bedok (1,440, 10.7%).

Distribution of MOP Flats by Town in 2026

The incoming MOP supply pipeline does not stop this year. SRI projects roughly 18,000 flats will reach their MOP in 2027 and around 21,000 in 2028, as the larger BTO cohorts completed in recent years work their way through the five-year mark.

PropNex’s own data shows that this effect is already working through the transaction mix. Resale flats with 94 years or more of remaining lease, a proxy for newly MOP-ed units, made up 5.9% of transactions in 2Q2026, up from 4.5% in 1Q2026. “It is likely that flats recently out of their 5-year minimum occupation period had helped to support the resale volume in 2Q2026,” says Wong. 

Tampines, Bukit Batok, and Punggol together accounted for about 58% of the 364 newly MOP-ed flats resold in the quarter, and 87 of those, spread across towns including Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh, Bedok, and Queenstown, fetched at least $1 million.

Sandrasegeran reads the steady flow of newly MOP-ed flats as deepening the pool of relatively newer resale homes on the market, thereby giving buyers more options across locations and price points, and easing the competitive bidding that had been pushing up prices at well-sought-after flats.

Rental demand up from a seasonal spike

HDB approved 10,002 rental applications in 2Q2026, up 4.9% from 9,535 in 1Q2026, and largely comparable to the 10,066 approved in 2Q2025. Realion attributes the quarterly surge to seasonal factors: tenants returning from their spring break, and renewals or new leases signed ahead of the academic year for some international students starting in the third quarter.

Rents remained highest in the Central Area, with median rents of about $3,300 for three-room flats, $4,600 for four-room flats, and $5,100 for five-room flats. Bukit Batok recorded the highest two-room median at $2,450, while Jurong West and Tampines led the executive flats at $4,000.

Across the full year, Realion forecasts HDB rental prices to hold steady at 1% to 3% growth, with leasing volume reaching 36,000 to 39,000 units.

Analysts broadly agree that the market is heading towards calmer waters

SRI expects HDB resale prices to register a more measured increase of 0.5% to 2% for the full year, with transaction volumes remaining healthy at around 25,000 to 26,000 flats. Likewise, PropNex echoes this sentiment, projecting resale prices to stay broadly stable and potentially rise by up to 1%, with transaction volumes reaching 26,000 to 27,000 flats.

However, Realion cautions that increased competition from new flat supply places downward pressure on prices in many estates. In turn it projects overall resale prices could trend between -1% and 2% in 2026.

“Looking ahead, some further re-pricing may be on the cards for the HDB segment, as buyer sentiment remains closely tied to macroeconomic conditions and employment stability. However, any adjustment is likely to be gradual rather than abrupt, as genuine housing demand continues to keep transaction volumes steady,” says Lim of ERA.

The million-dollar segment looks set to keep climbing regardless of the broader market predictions. PropNex counted 1,050 million-dollar resale flats sold in the year to July 23, already in line with the 1,593 such flats that changed hands across the whole of 2025.

The BTO pipeline will continue to add to that supply. HDB has rolled out 11,644 BTO and 4,320 SBF flats across the first two sales exercises this year, with a further 7,960 BTO units due across seven projects in Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh, and Yishun in October, keeping the full-year BTO target of 19,600 flats within reach.

The combined BTO and SBF supply for the year will be around 24,000 flats, on top of the 13,480 units reaching MOP. 

Where resale prices in the HDB market land by the end of this year will likely come down to how quickly the current wave of newly MOP-ed flats gets absorbed, and how much of the October BTO exercise draws first-time buyers who might otherwise have turned to resale.