Could a Dunearn House buyer make money after 5 years? The costs, and three cases from the market nearby

Buying a home costs more than its price, and selling it costs money too. This note works out how much the price of a Dunearn House home would need to rise before a sale gets those costs back. It then takes three cases from how prices moved for owners near here, a low, a middle and a high case, and shows what each would mean for a buyer who sells after 5 years.

It uses the prices Dunearn House buyers actually paid: for each bedroom type, the median of the sales lodged with URA from July to 25 October 2026, and the cheapest and most expensive. It assumes a reader who buys in November 2026. The price of a home still for sale today may differ from what earlier buyers paid.

Break-even rise in this note means how much the price would need to rise so that selling it covers what you paid, your stamp duty and your fees. The worked example also counts loan interest; the tables after it leave interest out, because it depends on your loan.

What is in this note

• The short answer
• What it costs to buy: buyer's stamp duty, additional buyer's stamp duty and legal fees
• What it costs to sell: commission, GST, legal fees and seller's stamp duty
• A worked example, with a loan: the median 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom, sold after 5 years
• From the cheapest home sold to the most expensive: the lowest sale price for each
• How prices have moved here: three cases from homes resold near here, 99-year condos first
• If you hold for 10 years: the same buyer, selling after 10 years

The short answer

• Three cases from the market near here. Among homes in 99-year condos near Dunearn House that were sold 4 to 6 years after being bought, 1 in 10 fell 0.64% a year or more, the middle rose 3.13% a year and 1 in 10 rose 13.19% a year or more. For a Singapore citizen buying a first home here with a 75% loan and selling after 5 years, the low case would mean losing about a third of the cash put in, the middle case gaining about a fifth, and the high case gaining about twice the cash put in. About 2 in 3 of those owners saw prices rise enough for that buyer to break even. All condos near here, most of them freehold, give similar cases.
• Held for 10 years. The price would need to rise about 15% to 16%, because 10 years of loan interest add to the costs. Among 99-year owners near here who sold 9 to 11 years after buying, only 1 in 20 sold for less than they paid, but about 1 in 3 did not gain enough to cover stamp duty, fees and interest.
• Singapore citizen buying a first home. With a 75% loan at 2% and a sale after 5 years, the price would need to rise about 8.7% for the median 2-bedroom, 9.2% for the 3-bedroom and 9.6% for the 4-bedroom to cover stamp duty, fees and interest. Without a loan, it is 5.7% to 7.2%, depending on the home.
• Other buyers pay more. Every figure here is for a Singapore citizen buying a first home. A permanent resident, a foreigner, or a citizen buying a second home also pays additional buyer's stamp duty, which needs a much larger rise to recover.
• Selling within 4 years costs more. Seller's stamp duty applies, from 16% in the first year to 4% in the fourth. The example sells after 5 years, so it pays none.

What it costs to buy

Buyer's stamp duty is charged on every home purchase. It rises in steps: 1% on the first $180,000 of the price, then 2%, 3%, 4% and 5%, and 6% on any part above $3 million. On a $1.937M home it comes to $66,450, about 3.4% of the price.

Additional buyer's stamp duty is charged on the whole price, on top of buyer's stamp duty, unless you are a Singapore citizen buying your first home. A permanent resident pays 5% on a first home, a foreigner 60%, and a citizen buying a second home 20%. This note does not work out those cases; at those rates, the price would need to rise far more before a sale breaks even.

This note also counts $3,000 in legal fees to buy. Buyers from the developer pay no agent's commission; the developer pays it.

What it costs to sell

This note counts the agent's commission at 2% of the sale price, plus 9% GST on that commission, which together come to 2.18% of the sale price. It adds $3,000 in legal fees. Commission is negotiable, so yours may be lower.

Seller's stamp duty applies if you sell within 4 years of buying: 16% of the sale price in the first year, 12% in the second, 8% in the third and 4% in the fourth. After 4 years there is none.

Dunearn House's keys are expected in December 2030, 49 months after a purchase in November 2026. So a buyer now who waits for the keys before selling pays no seller's stamp duty, but only by 1 month: the expected date is given to the month, not the day, and a buyer who buys later and sells as soon as the keys are handed over may still pay 4%.

A worked example, with a loan

A Singapore citizen buys a first home at Dunearn House in November 2026 at the median price buyers have paid for its bedroom type, borrows 75% of the price over 25 years at 2% a year, and sells 5 years after buying, 11 months after the keys are expected. The three columns are the median 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom.

A home under construction is paid for in stages as it is built, so the loan grows over time. You pay the first 25% yourself, in cash or CPF. The bank then pays each stage, and you pay interest only on what it has paid so far. By the time the keys are handed over, about 60% of the price is borrowed; the last 15% is due at legal completion, after the sale in this example.

	2-bedroom	3-bedroom	4-bedroom
Price	$1,937,000	$2,955,500	$3,849,000
Buyer's stamp duty	$66,450	$117,375	$170,540
Legal fees and mortgage duty, to buy	$3,500	$3,500	$3,500
Loan interest over 5 years	$50,586	$77,185	$100,520
Agent's commission and GST, to sell	$45,921	$70,347	$91,964
Legal fees, to sell	$3,000	$3,000	$3,000
Total costs	$169,457	$271,407	$369,524
Sell for at least	$2,106,457	$3,226,907	$4,218,524
Rise needed	8.7%	9.2%	9.6%

"Sell for at least" is the price that gets back the price you paid and every cost above. The rise needed is the total costs as a share of the price. The commission is 2.18% of that sale price, so it is larger for a more expensive home. The loan itself is repaid from the sale, so only the interest counts as a cost.

Not included: MCST fees, property tax, renovation, upkeep and insurance. They depend on the unit and how you use it, and they would add to the costs above.

Realila could not find how far construction has gone. The example spreads the stages from the purchase to the keys. If some stages have already been reached, they are paid on buying, the bank lends more sooner, and the interest would be somewhat higher.

A higher interest rate raises the rise needed. At 3% a year, the rise needed is 10.1%, 10.5% and 11.0% for the three homes. At 4%, it is 11.5%, 11.9% and 12.3%.

Without a loan, the rise needed is lower: 6.1%, 6.5% and 6.9%. The tables below leave out loan interest, so they do not depend on the loan.

From the cheapest home sold to the most expensive

Before loan interest, the lowest price each home would need to sell at, for the cheapest, median and most expensive price buyers have paid for each bedroom type, with the rise that takes.

	Cheapest	Median	Most expensive
2-bedroom	Bought at $1.475M$1.56M, 5.7% rise	Bought at $1.937M$2.05M, 6.1% rise	Bought at $2.174M$2.31M, 6.2% rise
3-bedroom	Bought at $2.597M$2.76M, 6.4% rise	Bought at $2.956M$3.15M, 6.5% rise	Bought at $3.370M$3.60M, 6.7% rise
4-bedroom	Bought at $3.606M$3.85M, 6.8% rise	Bought at $3.849M$4.12M, 6.9% rise	Bought at $4.603M$4.93M, 7.2% rise

Sales lodged with URA, July to 25 October 2026: 115 2-bedrooms, 88 3-bedrooms and 43 4-bedrooms.

Larger and more expensive homes need a slightly bigger rise, because buyer's stamp duty takes a bigger share of a bigger price.

More on this: the 2, 3 and 4-bedroom notes, for what each size sold for.

How prices have moved here: three cases

How much prices will rise is not known. What is known is how prices moved for owners near here. We looked at homes within 2.5 km of Dunearn House that were bought between 2000 and 2020 and sold again 4 to 6 years later. Dunearn House is on a 99-year lease, and most condos near it are freehold, so this note reads the 99-year condos first and all condos alongside.

• 99-year condos: 505 homes in 18 condos. One in 10 of those owners saw prices fall 0.64% a year or more. The middle owner saw a rise of 3.13% a year. One in 10 saw 13.19% a year or more.
• All condos near here: 1,425 homes in 90 condos. One in 10 saw a fall of 0.69% a year or more, the middle owner a rise of 3.43% a year, and 1 in 10 a rise of 12.22% a year or more.

The three cases below apply those rates to the worked example: a citizen's first home, a 75% loan at 2%, sold after 5 years.

99-year condos near here

Case	Price after 5 years	2-bedroom	3-bedroom	4-bedroom
Low casea fall of 0.64% a year, 1 in 10 owners did worse	3.2% lower	−$226,000−32.4% on cash	−$357,000−33.1% on cash	−$481,000−33.9% on cash
Middle case3.13% a year, the middle owner	16.7% higher	$150,00021.6% on cash	$217,00020.1% on cash	$267,00018.8% on cash
High case13.19% a year, 1 in 10 owners did better	85.8% higher	$1,460,000209.5% on cash	$2,215,000205.6% on cash	$2,869,000202.1% on cash

All condos near here

Case	Price after 5 years	2-bedroom	3-bedroom	4-bedroom
Low casea fall of 0.69% a year, 1 in 10 owners did worse	3.4% lower	−$230,000−33.0% on cash	−$363,000−33.7% on cash	−$489,000−34.4% on cash
Middle case3.43% a year, the middle owner	18.4% higher	$183,00026.2% on cash	$266,00024.7% on cash	$331,00023.3% on cash
High case12.22% a year, 1 in 10 owners did better	78.0% higher	$1,311,000188.1% on cash	$1,988,000184.5% on cash	$2,573,000181.2% on cash

Each figure is the gain or loss after stamp duty, fees, interest and the costs of selling. "On cash" is that gain or loss as a share of the cash you would have put in over the 5 years: the first 25% of the price, stamp duty, fees and every monthly loan repayment. For the 2-bedroom that is about $697,000.

• Sold after 5 years
• Sold after 10 years

To break even in the worked example, prices need to rise about 1.7% a year for the 2-bedroom, 1.8% for the 3-bedroom and 1.9% for the 4-bedroom. About 2 in 3 of the 99-year owners near here saw a yearly rise at least that large, and about 7 in 10 of all owners near here.

The year of buying made a large difference. Among all condos near here, the 34 owners who bought in 2000 and sold 4 to 6 years later saw a typical fall of 3.54% a year, and 94.1% of them sold for less than they paid. The 73 who bought in 2005 saw a typical rise of 13.17% a year. Across all 21 years, 13.5% of 99-year owners and 13.3% of all owners sold for less than they paid.

Dunearn House's prices may move faster or slower than any of these cases.

More on this: what Dunearn House buyers paid against resale nearby, 99-year and freehold.

If you hold for 10 years

The same buyer as in the worked example, a Singapore citizen buying a first home in November 2026 with a 75% loan at 2% over 25 years, sells 10 years after buying instead of 5. The last 15% of the price is now paid during the loan, at legal completion, which this note takes as 12 months after the keys.

	2-bedroom	3-bedroom	4-bedroom
Price	$1,937,000	$2,955,500	$3,849,000
Buyer's stamp duty	$66,450	$117,375	$170,540
Legal fees and mortgage duty, to buy	$3,500	$3,500	$3,500
Loan interest over 10 years	$172,456	$263,136	$342,686
Agent's commission and GST, to sell	$48,637	$74,491	$97,361
Legal fees, to sell	$3,000	$3,000	$3,000
Total costs	$294,043	$461,501	$617,087
Sell for at least	$2,231,043	$3,417,001	$4,466,087
Rise needed	15.2%	15.6%	16.0%

Over 10 years, that is a rise of about 1.4% a year for the 2-bedroom and 1.5% for the 3- and 4-bedroom. Interest is the largest cost: the loan is fully drawn from legal completion, and interest runs on it for the rest of the 10 years. If legal completion came later than 12 months after the keys, the interest would be lower, by about $10,000 on the 2-bedroom if it came 3 years after.

To see how prices moved over a hold this long, we looked at homes within 2.5 km of Dunearn House that were bought between 2000 and 2014 and sold again 9 to 11 years later.

• 99-year condos: 261 homes in 14 condos. One in 10 of those owners saw a rise of 0.40% a year or less, the middle owner 2.07% a year, and 1 in 10 a rise of 6.55% a year or more. Only 5.0% sold for less than they paid.
• All condos near here: 677 homes in 77 condos. One in 10 saw 0.09% a year or less, the middle owner 2.38% a year, and 1 in 10 a rise of 6.57% a year or more. 9.0% sold for less than they paid.

99-year condos near here, held 10 years

Case	Price after 10 years	2-bedroom	3-bedroom	4-bedroom
Low case0.40% a year, 1 in 10 owners did worse	4.0% higher	−$211,000−19.1% on cash	−$334,000−19.7% on cash	−$451,000−20.3% on cash
Middle case2.07% a year, the middle owner	22.7% higher	$143,00013.0% on cash	$206,00012.1% on cash	$252,00011.3% on cash
High case6.55% a year, 1 in 10 owners did better	88.6% higher	$1,391,000126.1% on cash	$2,110,000124.3% on cash	$2,732,000122.7% on cash

All condos near here, held 10 years

Case	Price after 10 years	2-bedroom	3-bedroom	4-bedroom
Low case0.09% a year, 1 in 10 owners did worse	0.9% higher	−$271,000−24.6% on cash	−$427,000−25.1% on cash	−$571,000−25.7% on cash
Middle case2.38% a year, the middle owner	26.5% higher	$214,00019.4% on cash	$314,00018.5% on cash	$394,00017.7% on cash
High case6.57% a year, 1 in 10 owners did better	89.0% higher	$1,399,000126.8% on cash	$2,122,000125.0% on cash	$2,748,000123.4% on cash

Each figure is the gain or loss after stamp duty, fees, interest and the costs of selling, as a share of the cash put in over the 10 years. For the 2-bedroom that is about $1,103,000.

In the low case the price still rises, but not by enough to cover stamp duty, fees and 10 years of interest. About 62% to 65% of 99-year owners near here, and 65% to 67% of all owners, saw a yearly rise large enough for this buyer to break even.

The owners who held 10 years are a different group from those who held 5: they bought between 2000 and 2014, and sold in different markets. So the two sets of cases describe different periods, not what holding longer does to the same home.

What this tells you

For a Singapore citizen buying a first home with a typical loan and selling after 5 years, Dunearn House's price would need to rise about 9% to 10% to cover stamp duty, fees, interest and the costs of selling. About 2 in 3 owners of 99-year condos near here who sold after 4 to 6 years saw prices rise at least that much. At the middle pace, the price rises by more than that and leaves a gain; at the low pace, it falls, and the buyer loses about a third of the cash put in. Held for 10 years, the price needs to rise about 15% to 16%; few owners near here who held that long sold for less than they paid, but about 1 in 3 did not gain enough to cover their costs and interest. A buyer who pays additional buyer's stamp duty, or sells within 4 years, needs a much larger rise.

What this does not tell you

• The price you would pay today. The prices here are what earlier buyers paid. A home still for sale may be priced differently, and its floor, facing and layout matter.
• Your own loan. The worked example assumes a 75% loan over 25 years at 2%. Your loan, rate and holding period will differ, and rates can change during a loan.
• How far construction has gone. If some payment stages are already reached, the interest would be somewhat higher than shown.
• The cost of owning. MCST fees, property tax, renovation, upkeep and insurance are left out, as are any rent you save or earn. So is the CPF accrued interest you would return to your CPF account on selling, which goes back to you.
• Other buyers. Every figure is for a Singapore citizen buying a first home. A permanent resident, a foreigner or a citizen buying a second home pays additional buyer's stamp duty, which this note does not work out. Check with IRAS or your lawyer for your case.
• Whether prices will rise. The three cases are what happened to homes resold near here, in past markets. They are not a forecast for Dunearn House.

Method and data notes

How to cite this note. Realila Research, "Could a Dunearn House buyer make money after 5 years? The costs, and three cases from the market nearby", realila.com/feed/dunearn-house-costs-and-returns, sales to 25 October 2026, rates as at 5 November 2026.

Prices. URA new-sale caveats for Dunearn House, July to 25 October 2026, single units; bedroom counts from the developer's unit list. For each bedroom type, the median, cheapest and most expensive price.

Stamp duties. Buyer's stamp duty, additional buyer's stamp duty and seller's stamp duty at the rates IRAS sets for homes bought on 5 November 2026, as held in Realila's policy records. Buyer's stamp duty is rounded down to the dollar.

Fees. Agent's commission on a sale at 2% of the sale price, with GST at 9% on the commission; legal fees of $3,000 to buy and $3,000 to sell. These are typical amounts, not quotes. Smaller costs, such as caveat and valuation fees, are left out.

Loan. 75% of the price over 25 years at 2% a year, repaid monthly. Payments follow the standard stages for a home under construction: 5% on booking, 15% at the sale and purchase agreement, then 10% foundation, 10% framework, 5% each for walls, ceilings, wiring and plumbing, and roads and drains, 25% at the keys and 15% at legal completion. The buyer pays the first 25%; the bank pays each later stage. Stage dates are Realila's assumption: the purchase is in November 2026, and the construction stages are spread up to the expected keys in December 2030 in the same proportions Realila uses for other launches. No official date for legal completion was found. This note takes it as 12 months after the keys: in the 5-year example it falls after the sale, so it changes no figure there; in the 10-year example a later date would lower the interest. Mortgage duty is 0.4% of the loan, capped at $500.

Three cases. Every home within 2.5 km of Dunearn House (condominiums and apartments, single-unit sales, collective sales excluded) that was bought between 2000 and 2020 and sold again 4 to 6 years later, matched on the same unit; read for 99-year condos and for all condos. Each owner's yearly rise is the sale price over the purchase price, to the power of 1 over the years held, minus 1. The low, middle and high cases are the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles of those yearly rises, applied for 5 years to the median price. For the 10-year case, homes bought between 2000 and 2014 and sold again 9 to 11 years later, so that every owner in it has had 11 years to sell. A purchase year is shown only where at least 10 owners bought in it.

Break-even sale price. The sale price at which the sale proceeds, after commission, GST, legal fees and any seller's stamp duty, equal the purchase price plus stamp duties and legal fees to buy, and, in the worked example, mortgage duty and loan interest. The rise is that sale price over the purchase price, minus 1. In the tables, sale prices are rounded to the nearest $10,000, dollar amounts to the nearest $1,000 and percentages to one decimal place. Rows in the worked example may not add to the total by $1 because of rounding.