A shoebox gained $77,672. The owner made $87,079, or lost $119,285.

A city-fringe shoebox bought in 2021 and sold this year gained about $77,700 on paper. After stamp duty, interest, commission, GST and five years of holding costs, the owner made $87,079 if their mortgage sat at 1.5%. At 4.5% they lost $10,399. Same unit, same five years, same sale price.

The price rose either way. Whether the owner made money was decided largely by what they paid to borrow, and entirely by whether they paid additional stamp duty.

This is a resale purchase, bought from a previous owner and rented out from day one. A new launch works differently: progressive payments during construction, and no rental income until the building is finished. We have now worked that case too: a new launch shoebox, bought 2018 and sold five years later. We have also set the two side by side, matched on the year each was bought: launch or resale, which reads this 2021 unit as an example of its era rather than of its type.

This piece works one case all the way through and shows every line.

Key takeaways

• The unit gained 1.69% a year on price. After all costs, the owner's return ran from +5.91% to −0.71% a year on nothing but the interest rate. The result
• Interest is the largest single cost in every scenario: $46,909 to $144,387 over five years, against a $77,672 price gain. The mortgage
• The rent never covered the mortgage. The owner topped up $559 to $1,658 a month for five years. The monthly gap
• On a second property the 12% additional duty added $108,886 at purchase, and every scenario becomes a loss. If it was a second property

The case, and how it was built

Two figures are measured, from 30 matched pairs, city-fringe shoebox units bought in 2021 and resold in the first half of 2026, taken from our repeat-sales analysis:

• Median purchase price: $907,387
• Median gain: 8.56%
• Median holding period: 4.9 years

The sale price below is those two combined ($907,387 plus 8.56%) not a separately measured median. That distinction matters. Taking the median purchase price against the median sale price would mix figures from different units and produce a gap no owner experienced; here the entry and the gain belong together. The resulting annual growth of 1.69% sits close to the measured median of 1.76%, which is the check that the construction is sound.

Bought	2021, $907,387
Size	490 sqft
Sold	2026, $985,059
Held	4.9 years
Gain on paper	$77,672
Capital growth	1.69% a year

Thirty pairs is a thin sample, and we chose it deliberately. A larger one exists for earlier purchase years (the 2016 cohort has 351 pairs) but a 2016 purchase sold in 2022 describes a market and a rate environment that no longer exist. A rough answer about the situation you are in beats a precise answer about one you are not. 2026 is also part-year, to 17 July, so these are first-half exits only.

Of those 30 pairs, 6 sold at a loss and the range ran from −8.9% to +22.3%. The median is the middle of a wide spread, not a typical result.

At purchase

What the buyer paid before the keys.

Item	Amount
Purchase price	$907,387
Deposit at 25%	$226,847
Loan at 75%	$680,540
Buyer's stamp duty	$21,822
Additional buyer's stamp duty	$0 (first property)
Legal fees	$3,000
Cash needed at purchase	$251,668

While holding: 4.9 years, 59 months

What the unit cost and earned across those 59 months.

Item	Amount
Gross rent collected	$155,379
Less vacancy at 5%	−$7,769
Less maintenance at $280/month	−$16,520
Less upkeep and repairs at $1,200/year	−$5,880
Less property tax at $2,400/year	−$11,760
Less rental agent fees, incl. GST	−$7,838
Net rent received	$105,612
	$1,790 a month

At sale

What came back at the end.

Item	Amount
Sale price	$985,059
Less agent commission at 2%	−$19,701
Less GST at 9% on commission	−$1,773
Less legal fees	−$3,000
Less seller's stamp duty	$0 (held over 3 years)
Net sale proceeds	$960,585

The mortgage, by interest rate

Item	1.5%	2.5%	3.5%	4.5%
Monthly payment	$2,349	$2,689	$3,056	$3,448
Interest paid over 59 months	$46,909	$78,934	$111,456	$144,387
Principal repaid	$91,664	$79,715	$68,844	$59,056
Loan outstanding at sale	$588,877	$600,826	$611,696	$621,484

A 30-year amortising loan at a flat rate. The range brackets what a borrower over this period actually experienced: rates sat near the bottom of it in 2021, rose sharply through 2022 and 2023, and have come back down: the lowest fixed packages are around 1.34% as we publish.

The monthly gap

Net rent is $1,790 a month. The mortgage is more than that at every rate.

Interest rate	Mortgage	Net rent	Monthly shortfall	Over 59 months
1.5%	$2,349	$1,790	−$559	−$32,960
2.5%	$2,689	$1,790	−$899	−$53,037
3.5%	$3,056	$1,790	−$1,266	−$74,688
4.5%	$3,448	$1,790	−$1,658	−$97,832

The unit was never self-funding. That shortfall is cash the owner added every month on top of the $251,668 at the start, and it belongs in any honest account of what they invested.

The result

Item	1.5%	2.5%	3.5%	4.5%
Net sale proceeds	$960,585	$960,585	$960,585	$960,585
Less loan outstanding	−$588,877	−$600,826	−$611,696	−$621,484
Equity released at sale	$371,708	$359,759	$348,888	$339,101
Plus net rent received	+$105,612	+$105,612	+$105,612	+$105,612
Less cash at purchase	−$251,668	−$251,668	−$251,668	−$251,668
Less all mortgage payments	−$138,572	−$158,648	−$180,300	−$203,444
Profit	$87,079	$55,054	$22,532	−$10,399
Total cash put in	$284,629	$304,705	$326,356	$349,500
Return	+5.91% a year	+3.76% a year	+1.54% a year	−0.71% 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.

Interest is the largest single cost in every column. At 4.5% the owner paid $144,387 in interest against a $77,672 price gain. The property did not fail; the financing consumed the gain and more.

If it was a second property

Most shoebox purchases are investment purchases. A Singapore citizen buying a second residential property in 2021 paid additional buyer's stamp duty of 12%: $108,886 on this unit, in cash, at purchase.

Add that one line and every column turns negative:

Interest rate	Profit	Return
1.5%	−$21,807	−1.20% a year
2.5%	−$53,832	−3.00% a year
3.5%	−$86,354	−4.84% a year
4.5%	−$119,285	−6.73% a year

A second-property buyer lost money in every scenario, on a unit whose price rose $77,672. The duty alone exceeded the gain by $31,214 before a dollar of interest was paid.

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

What this does and does not say

It does not say shoeboxes are bad. Our repeat-sales work found 88.8% of shoebox owners sold above what they paid, and suburban owners did considerably better than city-fringe ones. This is one group, in one region, over a window containing the sharpest rate rise in fifteen years.

It does say the property is often not the deciding factor. Two people could buy this unit on the same day, hold it five years, sell at the same price, and finish more than $200,000 apart on nothing but their duty position and their mortgage rate.

And it says gross figures mislead. "$77,672 gain" and "lost $119,285" describe the same transaction.

What this does not tell you

• Your numbers. Everything past the three measured figures is an assumption, and yours will differ on every line.
• Income tax. Not modelled. Rental income is taxable and would reduce every result above.
• 2026 rent. Our rental data runs to February 2026, so the final months use the 2025 median. That is an estimate.
• Whether the median describes your unit. Six of the 30 pairs lost money and the spread ran from −8.9% to +22.3%.

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Method

The measured figures are medians of 30 matched pairs from URA caveat data: city-fringe shoebox units of 400 to 538 sqft bought in 2021 and resold between January and July 2026, matched on unit identity so both legs are the same unit. 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 resulting 1.69% annual growth compares with a measured median of 1.76%.

Rent uses the city-fringe shoebox medians published in our regional rent article for each year held, applied to 490 sqft, with 2026 estimated at the 2025 figure. Buyer's stamp duty is computed at the published schedule. GST is applied at 9%, the rate in force at sale. Mortgage figures assume a 30-year amortising loan at a flat rate; a real borrower over 2021 to 2026 saw rates move substantially within the period, so the four columns bracket that rather than model it.

Every figure other than the three measured ones is an assumption made by us and stated above. They are reasonable; they are not this owner's actual costs, which no dataset records.

Sale data to 17 July 2026, rental data to February 2026.