Where To Find The Cheapest 5-room Resale HDB Flats In 2024 (From $418,000)

Resale flat prices may be seeing slower growth, but they’re still past any price level prior to Covid; and from the look of things, the $500,000 resale 5-room flat may be a thing of the past. Or is it? As it turns out, it’s still barely possible from what we’ve seen in 2023, depending on which districts you look in. For those of you who are on a budget, but absolutely must get a resale 5-room, here are some towns you might want to look into:

First, a look at 5-room flat price movements over 2023

Non-mature estate price movement

Mature estate price movement

Generally, there’s not much change since last year; the stand-outs being Bukit Merah and Serangoon. The big price jump in Bukit Merah was due to a record-breaking $1.45 million transaction, while earlier last year we had pointed out the noticeable pick-up in Serangoon resale prices. 

Broadly speaking, however, prices in many HDB towns have lost some momentum, which provides a glimmer of hope for buyers. We’d also note that HDB ramped up production over 2022/23, and as those new flats hit their MOP and join the resale market, we don’t see a probability of the same meteoric price rise in previous years. 

Now, on to where we found the cheapest flats

Age is a factor here, and if we just went by the absolute lowest quantum, we’d end up with just the very oldest flats. This may not work for everyone (e.g., if the least doesn’t last till the youngest borrower reaches 95 years old, there will be restrictions on CPF usage). So we’ve broken these up by age instead.

In addition, we know HDB doesn’t use mature and non-mature categorisations anymore; but we’ve continued using these, as most Singaporeans still evaluate the neighbourhood along the same lines.

Let’s start with non-mature HDB towns

Non-mature flats under 10 years of age

Non-mature flats between 11 – 20 years old

Non-mature flats between 21 – 30 years old

Non-mature flats above 30 years old

Overall, the cheapest non-mature towns for 5-room flats are Woodlands, Choa Chu Kang, Sembawang, and Sengkang. 

If you look at the oldest flats, however, Jurong West (and in rarer cases Jurong East) start to make an appearance. This still goes back to the roots of the town; right up to the 1980s, Jurong was a manufacturing hub. The flats that are in the Jurong West area were initially meant for housing blue-collar workers, and hence the oldest ones started at low initial prices.

It’s also possible that the huge transformation of Jurong East, near the MRT station, is far ahead of the changes we’ve seen in Jurong West. One side is the “second CBD” which is a retail powerhouse, with JEM, Westgate, IMM, and so forth; whereas Jurong West is still more known as “that place where foreign workers like to rent.” This is likely to change in the coming years though, as Jurong’s transformation continues.

Conversely, among the youngest HDB flats, Yishun is more prevalent. Putting aside the usual slew of jokes (Yishun has a generally undeserved reputation for weirdness), many Singaporeans still consider Yishun a bit too secluded and far up north, although decentralisation may fix that with time. Besides, additions like Northpoint City mean that you don’t have to travel outside of Yishun to get access to your usual slew of restaurants/cafes and shops.

One notable observation is that, if you’re willing to settle for a 21+ year old, non-mature flat, prices can be below $500,000. The 5-room flats only climb past $500,000 if you want newer flats, for the non-mature towns.

Now let’s look at mature towns

Mature flats below 10 years old

Mature flats between 11 – 20 years old

Mature flats between 21 – 30 years old

Mature flats more than 30 years old

For mature towns, there’s not a single 5-room flat that’s below $500,000 anymore. The absolute lowest we found was $508,000, for a 30+ year old flat in Bedok. 

That said, Tampines is generally the cheaper option here, if you want a newer 5-room flat. Prices are still north of $740,000, but this may be as cheap as it gets if you want a newer flat that is 10 years old or under. 

The thing about Tampines though, is that it’s a big place: even though it’s a regional centre, a lot of the best qualities are concentrated in Tampines Central – this is where there’s a large cluster of malls, office space, the Tampines MRT station, and so forth. Areas like Tampines Street 45, which are closer to Tampines East MRT, are rather far from this hotspot; so there can be a big discrepancy in the level of convenience.

Among the oldest flats, Bedok is quite prevalent. Bedok used to be the biggest town in Singapore by the way (but it was overtaken by Tampines in the mid-90s, then by Jurong West, and today the biggest is Hougang).

But still, like Tampines, it’s a big area; and although it’s called mature, some areas are still a bit inaccessible. Bedok North Avenue 1, and Bedok Reservoir, for instance, are seemingly light-years apart from Bedok Central, where you find amenities like Bedok Point, the upcoming Sky Eden, etc. So while we can tell you the cheapest 5-room flats are here, this neighbourhood is so large that it’s quite difficult to generalise. 

To be sure, these aren’t the cheapest prices – in fact, they’re probably surprising if this is the first time you’ve checked resale prices since the previous decade. But this is the reality of the market now; and if you can afford to wait and are on a budget, this may be your cue to join the BTO line for now.