What renting out a new launch shoebox was worth, on top of the price gain

Buying a new launch means paying for a home that does not exist yet, in instalments, across three years of construction. There is no rent until it is finished, and no way to see it before you commit. It sounds like the harder proposition. The rest of what we found about shoebox units in Singapore is on the shoebox units guide.

A shoebox bought at launch in 2018 and sold five years later gained $104,320 on paper. What the owner actually earned depended on one decision more than any other: whether they rented it out after completion or left it empty for the sale.

Rented out, the return ran from 7.63% to 3.17% a year. Left empty, from 2.79% to −1.97%. Same unit, same price, same five years.

Key takeaways

• Renting the unit out after completion was worth about $47,400 over the hold, at every mortgage rate tested. Rented out or left empty
• Only $165,270 was needed in the first two months. The rest arrived in stages across three years, so far less capital was tied up for far less time. The payment schedule
• Interest over five years was $21,577 at 1.5%, because the loan was never fully drawn until month 48. The mortgage
• On a second property, 7% additional duty of $51,030 leaves every scenario at a loss except renting it out at 1.5% or 2.5%. If it was a second property

The case, and how it was built

Two figures are measured, from 1,383 matched pairs: shoebox units bought as new launches and resold four to six years later, with the sale completing from 2020 onward, drawn from our repeat-sales analysis.

• Median purchase price: $729,000
• Median gain: 14.31%
• Median holding period: 5.0 years
• Median time from purchase to completion: 3.0 years

Three years from purchase to completion is the most common outcome here: 443 of the 1,383 pairs, more than any other timeline. It is also the most common build length overall, with 283 projects completing three years after their first recorded sale against 194 at four years. So this describes a buyer entering at or near launch on a typical build.

Shorter and longer builds behave differently, and not in the direction you might expect. A four-year build gained more, a median 18.09%, while giving only one year of rent. That trade deserves its own analysis and we have not published one.

The sale price below is the first two combined, not a separately measured median. Taking a median purchase against a median sale would mix figures from different units and produce a gap no owner experienced.

Bought	2018, $729,000
Size	474 sqft
Completed	Three years after purchase
Sold	$833,320
Held	5.0 years
Gain on paper	$104,320
Capital growth	2.71% a year

The median purchase date of the 443 pairs is 13 May 2018, so every figure below uses the rules in force then: a bank loan limit of 80% for a first housing loan and, for a second property, 7% additional buyer's stamp duty. Both changed on 6 July 2018, to 75% and 12%.

How a launch purchase is paid for

This is what makes a launch different, and it is where most of the return comes from.

A resale buyer hands over 20% of the price and takes the full loan at once. A launch buyer pays in stages tied to construction, and the loan draws down as each stage falls due.

Stage	When	Amount	From cash	From loan
Booking fee, 5%	On booking	$36,450	$36,450
Further 15%	Month 2	$109,350	$109,350
Foundation, 10%	Month 9	$72,900		$72,900
Concrete framework, 10%	Month 15	$72,900		$72,900
Brick walls, 5%	Month 20	$36,450		$36,450
Roofing and ceiling, 5%	Month 25	$36,450		$36,450
Doors and windows, 5%	Month 29	$36,450		$36,450
Car park and drains, 5%	Month 32	$36,450		$36,450
Temporary Occupation Permit, 25%	Month 36	$182,250		$182,250
Certificate of Statutory Completion, 15%	Month 48	$109,350		$109,350
Total		$729,000	$182,250	$546,750

Plus buyer's stamp duty of $16,470 and legal fees of $3,000, both payable early. You can check the duty on any price with our stamp duty calculator.

In the first two months the buyer needed $165,270. That was the whole deposit; everything after came from the loan.

The mortgage

During construction the buyer services interest only on what has been drawn. From completion, the loan amortises normally.

Item	1.5%	2.5%	3.5%	4.5%
Interest paid over 60 months	$21,577	$36,055	$50,594	$65,181
Loan outstanding at sale	$554,771	$558,840	$562,473	$565,685

A 30-year amortising loan on the drawn balance from completion. The four rates bracket what a borrower over 2018 to 2023 actually saw: near the bottom early, sharply higher through 2022 and 2023.

$21,577 of interest over five years at 1.5%. That is low because the loan spent most of the period only partly drawn.

Rented out, or left empty

Here is the decision that mattered most, and it is one a flipper faces directly.

Some buyers hold a launch purchase intending to sell soon after completion, and never rent it out. Others rent it out and sell with a tenant in place. The second earns rent but sells into a narrower pool, because an owner-occupier cannot move in.

Rented out. The unit sat empty for two months after completion while a tenant was found, then rented out for the remaining 22 months.

Item	Amount
Gross rent, 22 months	$62,464
Less maintenance, upkeep, property tax and agent fees	−$17,785
Net rent received	$44,678
Sale price, less 1.5% for selling tenanted	$820,820

Left empty. No rent for the full 24 months after completion, and maintenance, upkeep and property tax still payable throughout. Sale at the full $833,320.

The result at each rate:

Interest rate	Rented out	Left empty	Difference
1.5%	+7.63%	+2.79%	4.8 points
2.5%	+6.18%	+1.24%	4.9 points
3.5%	+4.69%	−0.35%	5.0 points
4.5%	+3.17%	−1.97%	5.1 points

In cash, renting out was worth about $47,400 over the hold at every rate. At 3.5% and 4.5% the empty unit lost money on a property whose price rose $104,320.

The comparison holds two years of rent, $44,678 net, against a $12,500 discount for selling tenanted. Rent is worth roughly three and a half times what the tenanted sale costs.

How much would the discount have to be? The 1.5% haircut is our assumption, not a measured figure: caveat data does not record whether a unit sold vacant or tenanted, so this cannot be derived. It can be tested, though.

Tenanted-sale discount	Rented out, at 1.5%	Left empty, at 1.5%
0%	+8.72%	+2.79%
1.5% (our assumption)	+7.63%	+2.79%
3%	+6.50%	+2.79%
5%	+4.91%	+2.79%
5.5%	+4.50%	+2.79%
6%	+4.08%	+2.79%
7%	+3.22%	+2.79%
8%	+2.34%	+2.79%

The discount would need to exceed about 7.5% before leaving the unit empty came out ahead, and only at the lowest interest rate. At higher rates renting wins by more, because the rent offsets interest the empty unit still pays.

Everything else, itemised

At sale, if rented out

Item	Amount
Sale price, after the 1.5% tenanted discount	$820,820
Less agent commission at 2%	−$16,416
Less GST at 9% on commission	−$1,477
Less legal fees	−$3,000
Less seller's stamp duty	$0 (held five years; the schedule for this purchase date ran 3 years)
Net sale proceeds	$799,927

The result, rented out

Item	1.5%	2.5%	3.5%	4.5%
Profit	$73,216	$58,738	$44,199	$29,612
Return	+7.63% a year	+6.18% a year	+4.69% a year	+3.17% a year

The result, left empty

Item	1.5%	2.5%	3.5%	4.5%
Profit	$25,816	$11,338	−$3,200	−$17,787
Return	+2.79% a year	+1.24% a year	−0.35% a year	−1.97% a year

Return is an internal rate of return on the monthly cash flows, which accounts for money going in gradually rather than all at once. On a launch purchase that matters more than usual, because the staged schedule is precisely what makes the return work.

The property increased 2.71% a year. A rented-out owner at 1.5% earned 7.63%. The gap is leverage, and the leverage was cheap because most of it was not drawn until late.

If it was a second property

A Singapore citizen buying a second residential property on this purchase date paid additional buyer's stamp duty of 7%: $51,030 on this unit, in cash, at booking. Our stamp duty calculator shows what applies at today's rates.

Interest rate	Rented out	Left empty
1.5%	1.97%	−2.32%
2.5%	0.69%	−3.68%
3.5%	−0.62%	−5.08%
4.5%	−1.95%	−6.51%

Every scenario is a loss except renting out at 1.5% or 2.5%. The duty alone consumed 49% of the entire paper gain before a dollar of interest was paid.

The rate has risen since. From 6 July 2018 a citizen's second property attracted 12%, from December 2021 17%, and from April 2023, 20%. A foreign buyer has paid 60% since April 2023.

Why we did not model a 2021 purchase

Our resale worked example covers a unit bought in 2021 and sold in 2026, and the obvious question is why this one uses a 2018 entry instead.

The reason is sample. Launch purchases in 2021 that had resold by 2026 number 30 pairs, against 1,383 for the four-to-six-year window generally. And their outcome is very different: a median gain of 6.47% against this sample's 14.31%, on a median entry of $954,085 rather than $729,000.

That is worth stating plainly. A launch bought in 2021 gained less than half what one bought in 2018 did. Whatever this article shows about how a launch purchase works mechanically, the entry year mattered more than the mechanics.

For the same reason, do not read this against the resale example as a like-for-like comparison. Different entry years, different rate environments. A proper comparison needs groups matched by purchase year, which we have now published: launch or resale, matched on the year bought.

What this does not tell you

• Your numbers. Everything past the four measured figures is an assumption, and yours will differ on every line.
• Your project's timeline. Three years to completion is the median. A longer build means a longer dead period.
• The tenanted-sale discount. Assumed at 1.5% and shown across a range, because it cannot be measured from the transaction record.
• Income tax. Not modelled. It reduces every result above.
• What happens next. This describes purchases made around 2018 and sold around 2023, at duty rates that no longer apply.

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Method and data notes. Sale data to 4 August 2026, rental data to February 2026.

The measured figures are medians of 1,383 matched pairs from URA caveat data: shoebox units of 400 to 538 sqft bought as new sales and resold four to six years later, with the sale completing from 2020 onward, matched on unit identity so both legs are the same unit. Time to completion is the project's completion year less the purchase year.

The sale price is the median purchase price uplifted by the median gain, rather than a separately measured median sale price, so that entry and gain describe the same population.

The payment schedule is the standard progressive scheme. Stage timings are placed at typical construction milestones for a three-year build. The buyer's own 20% (the loan limit in force on the purchase date was 80%) is applied to the earliest stages and the loan draws down thereafter, which is how a normal-payment-scheme purchase is financed.

Rent uses the shoebox medians published in our regional rent article, applied to 474 sqft. The rented-out scenario assumes two months vacant after completion before the first tenancy, then continuous renting. The empty scenario still carries maintenance, upkeep and property tax throughout, as does the rented one in its two vacant months. Property tax is charged at the non-owner-occupier rates in force in each year of the hold, which apply to a residential unit that is let out or left vacant, on an annual value taken as the unit's modelled market rent.

The case is priced on the rules in force on 13 May 2018, the median purchase date of the 443 pairs: buyer's stamp duty, the bank loan limit, seller's stamp duty and, for a second property, additional buyer's stamp duty, each from the schedule in force on that date. Purchases made after 6 July 2018 faced a 75% loan limit and 12% additional duty. GST is applied at 9%. Interest is serviced on the drawn balance during construction and the loan amortises over 30 years thereafter.

Every figure other than the four measured ones is an assumption made by us and stated above.

Sale data to 4 August 2026, rental data to February 2026.