A Sentosa Cove developer sold at $3,252 per square foot in 2009. The same enclave was reselling at $1,400 that year.

In 2009 a buyer could pay a developer $3,252 per square foot for a new Sentosa Cove apartment. In the same year, in the same enclave, resale apartments were changing hands at $1,400. The rest of the Sentosa Cove findings are on the Sentosa Cove guide.

Both numbers were in the public record at the time. Seventeen years later the resale market has still never reached what those buyers paid.

What is in this note

• The cliff: how buyers who bought new from the developer in each year from 2004 to 2011 did when they resold, and the launch price in each year.
• Above the resale median since 2012: each year's launch price set against the median Sentosa Cove resale price from 2012 to 2026, and against the resale price in the same year.
• What a normal premium looks like: how far launch prices sat above same-year resale prices in Sentosa Cove and in the core central region on the mainland (CCR), and how resale prices in the two have moved since 2013.
• Why prices fell in 2024: the stamp duty on foreign buyers, and the foreign share of purchases in Sentosa Cove, the mainland core central region and Singapore as a whole from 2004 to 2025.

The cliff

Buyers who bought new from the developer, grouped by the year they bought, and how their eventual resale turned out.

Resales counts only those homes that have since been sold again. Made money is the share of those that sold for more than the buyer paid. Median outcome is what happened to the typical one: line up every sale from worst to best and take the one in the middle. A reading of +10% means that home sold for a tenth more than it cost; -10% means a tenth less.

Bought new in	Resales	Launch price that year	Made money	Median outcome
2004	7	$847	100%	+85.4%
2005	6	$936	100%	+61.1%
2006	46	$1,454	67.4%	+6.4%
2007	15	$2,563	0%	-41.2%
2008	8	$2,734	0%	-34.3%
2009	2	$3,252	0%	-18.0%
2010	12	$2,672	0%	-32.9%
2011	3	$2,719	0%	-38.5%

The break falls between 2006 and 2007. Two thirds of the people who bought new in 2006 made money. Of everyone who bought new in the five years after it, none did.

The launch price went from $1,454 in 2006 to $2,563 in 2007, a rise of 76%, and no year's median resale price has reached $2,563 since.

The resale counts are small in some years because they count only homes that have since been sold again. The launch price is the median across every new sale the developer made that year.

Above the resale median since 2012

The median Sentosa Cove resale price was $1,714 per square foot in 2007 and $1,614 in 2026. In between, the median in single years ranged from $1,400 (2009) to $2,125 (2023). Across all resales from 2012 to 2026, the median is $1,678.

The chart sets each year's launch price against that year's median resale price.

• New launch
• Resale

The developer line and the resale line are the same enclave in the same years. They separate after 2006 and never rejoin.

Measured against the $1,678 median, the launch prices from the table above sit:

Launch year	Against the 2012 to 2026 median
2006	-13%
2007	+53%
2008	+63%
2009	+94%
2010	+59%
2011	+62%

Every launch from 2007 to 2011 was priced between 53% and 94% above the 2012 to 2026 median. The only launch below it was 2006, and 2006 is the last year most buyers made money.

Comparing a launch with that year's resale price alone can mislead in either direction. Against 2009's resale median, the 2009 launch was 132% higher; against 2011's, the 2011 launch was 29% higher, close to the mainland norm. Against the 2012 to 2026 median, they were 94% and 62% higher.

A spot comparison would have cleared the 2011 launch. Its buyers are down 38.5%.

What a normal premium looks like

Developers price above the resale market everywhere. That is what buying new costs: a newer building, choice of unit, a warranty, deferred payment. The question is how much.

Year	Mainland CCR	Sentosa Cove
2007	+42%	+50%
2008	+30%	+67%
2009	+30%	+132%
2010	+36%	+37%
2011	+33%	+29%

These compare each year's launch price with that same year's resale price, which is what a buyer could see at the time. The previous section compared the same launches with the median resale price from 2012 to 2026. The two differ most in 2009, when resale was temporarily depressed: +132% against that year's resale, +94% against the 2012 to 2026 median.

The mainland CCR sits in a tight band around a third, in every year, across thousands of transactions. Sentosa's 2008 launch charged twice that, and its 2009 launch four times.

Mainland resale prices have also risen over time, and Sentosa's have not.

• Mainland CCR
• Sentosa Cove

Resale prices in the mainland CCR rose from $1,726 per square foot in 2013 to $2,209 in 2026, up 28%. Sentosa went from $1,640 to $1,614 over the same thirteen years. On the mainland, resale prices catch up with the launch premium over time. Here they never have.

Tenure does not explain the difference: leasehold in the mainland CCR rose 30% over the same period, in line with its freehold.

Why prices fell in 2024

Sentosa Cove resale prices did something unusual in 2022 and 2023. Having been between 0% and 22% below the mainland CCR in every year from 2013 to 2021, they briefly reached parity: $2,018 against $2,012 in 2022, and $2,125 against $2,080 in 2023.

Then in one year they fell 21% while the mainland CCR rose 3%.

Additional buyer's stamp duty for foreign buyers doubled to 60% in April 2023. It was the fifth increase, after 10% in 2011, 15% in 2013, 20% in 2018 and 30% in 2021.

As those increases accumulated, the foreign share of purchases fell overall, nationally and in the mainland CCR. Sentosa's rose again, from 8.3% in 2016 to 21.7% in 2019 and from 8.5% in 2021 to 20.9% in 2023.

• Sentosa Cove
• Mainland CCR
• National

Nationally the foreign share ran 19.3% in 2011, the year the duty was introduced, and 3.5% by 2023. The mainland CCR went from 27.8% to 7.4% over the same period.

Sentosa was the exception. Its foreign share was 20.9% in 2023, six times the national rate, when the duty doubled.

Year	Sentosa Cove	Mainland CCR	National
2023	20.9%	7.4%	3.5%
2025	5.8%	2.6%	1.2%
Fall	-72%	-65%	-66%

Proportionally the shock is almost identical everywhere. Every segment lost roughly two thirds of its remaining foreign buyers.

In percentage points the falls differed widely. The foreign share of purchases fell by 15.1 points in Sentosa Cove, 4.8 in the mainland CCR and 2.3 nationally.

Between 2023 and 2024 the median Sentosa Cove resale price fell from $2,125 to $1,679 per square foot, while the mainland CCR's rose from $2,080 to $2,144. The fall in Sentosa's foreign share of purchases, 15.1 points, was about three times the mainland CCR's 4.8.

What this tells you

Every buyer who bought a new Sentosa Cove apartment from a developer from 2007 to 2011, and has since resold it, lost money. The median outcome for each year's buyers ranged from an 18.0% loss to a 41.2% loss. Most buyers from 2004 to 2006 made money.

Those launches were priced 53% to 94% above the median Sentosa Cove resale price from 2012 to 2026, $1,678 per square foot. Against the resale price in the same year, Sentosa's launch premium ranged from 29% in 2011 to 132% in 2009. In the core central region on the mainland (CCR), the same-year premium was 30% to 42% in every year from 2007 to 2011. In 2010 and 2011 Sentosa's same-year premium, 37% and 29%, was close to the mainland's.

On the mainland, resale prices rose 28% from 2013 to 2026. Sentosa's were $1,640 per square foot in 2013 and $1,614 in 2026.

Between 2023 and 2024 the median Sentosa Cove resale price fell 21%, from $2,125 to $1,679 per square foot, while the mainland's rose 3%. The stamp duty on foreign buyers had doubled to 60% in April 2023. The foreign share of purchases fell by roughly two thirds everywhere, but from a much higher share in Sentosa Cove: from 20.9% in 2023 to 5.8% in 2025, against 7.4% to 2.6% on the mainland.

A launch price is only meaningful against the resale market beside it. On its own it tells you what a developer is asking. Against the resale series it tells you what the same location is simultaneously worth to someone else, and how far the asking price sits from it.

One year of that comparison is not enough. The 2011 launch was 29% above 2011's resale median, but 62% above the median from 2012 to 2026. A longer series of resale prices gives a better comparison than a single year.

A market that depends on one kind of buyer is exposed to policy aimed at that buyer. In 2023, 20.9% of Sentosa Cove purchases were by foreign buyers, against 7.4% in the mainland CCR. When the April 2023 increase removed about two thirds of the remaining foreign buyers everywhere, it removed a much larger share of Sentosa Cove's buyers.

What this does not tell you

• Whether Sentosa Cove is cheap in 2026. Everything here is about what happened to past buyers. The median resale price across 2012 to 2026 is $1,678, with single years between $1,429 and $2,125; that describes the past and is not a forecast.
• Why the developers priced where they did, or why buyers paid it. Caveat records carry prices, not reasoning.
• What a launch price includes. Before 25 May 2015 a new sale price was the price on the option, before any discount or rebate. Whether developers commonly gave rebates in that period is disputed on the public record. The Method explains what that means for the premiums here.
• What happens if the stamp duty changes again. The exposure that made Sentosa fragile in 2024 would work in the other direction, and we have no basis for saying by how much.
• Anything about the landed homes. This is the non-landed enclave only.
• Costs. All figures are gross of stamp duties, agent fees, legal costs and holding costs, which for a foreign buyer since April 2023 would change every outcome here.

Method and data notes. Sale data to 4 August 2026.

Figures are transacted prices from URA caveat data for Sentosa Cove non-landed projects, excluding collective sales. Non-landed means condominiums and apartments; the enclave also contains landed homes, which are excluded throughout.

A resale pair matches a home to its own previous recorded sale, matched on the unit record. Outcomes are the second price divided by the first.

Launch price is the median price per square foot across a project's new sale transactions, which are the developer's own sales.

Before 25 May 2015 a new sale price was recorded as the price on the option, before any discount or rebate, so read the launch premiums in this note as an upper bound.

The resale median of $1,678 is the median of every Sentosa Cove resale from 2012 to 2026, the period after the last launch. Where a launch is compared with a single year's resale price, that is stated; the two comparisons answer different questions and are kept separate.

The mainland CCR means Core Central Region private condominiums and apartments excluding Sentosa Cove.

Residency figures are from URA records of purchases by residency status, at planning area level. Sentosa Cove sits in the Southern Islands planning area. These count purchases in a year, not the ownership make-up of a development.

Sale data to 4 August 2026.

30 October 2026. This note placed homes in market segments by postal district. URA places them by planning area, which moves about one in seven private sales between regions. The figures by region here use the earlier segments and differ from what the same records give now. How regions are set: How we measure prices and sales.