Published 28 August 2026
Last updated 30 October 2026
In 2025 a 2 bedroom condo had a gross rental yield of 3.29%, against 2.89% for a 3 bedroom
By Realila
In 2017 a 2 bedroom condominium cost 13.2% more per square foot to buy than a 3 bedroom. Today it costs 0.9% more, and in outside central (OCR) it costs slightly less. The extra price once paid for the smaller home is effectively gone. The rest of the 2 bedroom picture is on the 2 bedroom condo guide: what it costs, what it rents for, what it yields and how big it is.
The extra rent a tenant pays is not. A 2 bedroom still rents for 11.5% more per square foot than a 3 bedroom. The rent premium has eased from 16.4% in 2017, but it is still there. The price premium has all but disappeared.
That split, a rent premium that eased but stayed positive and a price premium that disappeared, is why the gap between the two rental yields has widened from 0.12 of a percentage point in 2017 to 0.40 of a point in 2025.
Throughout this article the yardstick is the 3 bedroom, because it is the nearest larger size to a 2 bedroom, the step up that a 2 bedroom decision weighs. The 1 bedroom, the nearest size down, appears in the renting-out table later in this piece, and the psf article in this series sets all four sizes side by side.
What is in this note
- What tenants pay: the rent per square foot of a 2 bedroom against a 3 bedroom, and the rent premium, from 2017 to 2025.
- What a 2 bedroom transacts at: the resale price per square foot of each, and the price premium, in the same projects.
- What that does to rental yield: the gross rental yield of each, and how far apart the two are.
- It is not one region doing it: the rent and price premiums in the core central region (CCR), the rest of central region (RCR) and outside central (OCR).
- The smaller the home, the more price premium it lost: the same pattern in shoebox units, and what can and cannot be compared.
- How often each size is rented out: new leases per 100 homes, from 1 bedroom to 4 bedroom.
- What we cannot explain: why the gap between the rental yields has not closed, and why the rent premium eased.
What tenants pay
- 2 bedroom
- 3 bedroom
Median monthly rent per square foot for a 2 bedroom against a 3 bedroom:
| Year | 2 bedroom rent psf | 3 bedroom rent psf | Rent premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | $3.20 (983) | $2.75 (1,057) | +16.4% |
| 2018 | $3.17 (1,013) | $2.79 (1,102) | +13.7% |
| 2019 | $3.15 (1,056) | $2.75 (1,145) | +14.7% |
| 2020 | $3.10 (1,037) | $2.71 (1,104) | +14.4% |
| 2021 | $3.22 (1,046) | $2.81 (1,153) | +14.7% |
| 2022 | $3.84 (1,019) | $3.30 (1,096) | +16.5% |
| 2023 | $4.70 (1,022) | $4.09 (1,117) | +15.0% |
| 2024 | $4.57 (999) | $4.02 (1,065) | +13.8% |
| 2025 | $4.58 (1,007) | $4.11 (1,070) | +11.5% |
Both rents rose steeply in 2022 and 2023, when rents across the market rose fastest, and then flattened. The premium a tenant pays for the 2 bedroom spent 7 years moving inside a band from 13.7% to 16.5% with no direction. It has fallen in each of the last 2 years, to 13.8% and then 11.5%, and 2025 is the only reading in 9 years below that 7-year band.
The recent easing is not 2 bedroom rents falling. It is 3 bedroom rents catching up: since the 2023 peak, rent on a 2 bedroom has slipped about 2.5% while rent on a 3 bedroom has held. A span of 2 years is too short to call a trend, and we say so rather than guess.
What a 2 bedroom transacts at
We have shown part of this before. In the psf piece in this series we found resale prices per square foot converging across all four sizes, to within $90 of each other by 2025. This section measures that convergence for a 2 bedroom against a 3 bedroom, inside a fixed set of projects.
- 2 bedroom
- 3 bedroom
| Year | 2 bedroom psf | 3 bedroom psf | Price premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | $1,195 (286) | $1,056 (409) | +13.2% |
| 2018 | $1,288 (284) | $1,147 (374) | +12.3% |
| 2019 | $1,275 (230) | $1,178 (349) | +8.3% |
| 2020 | $1,211 (224) | $1,135 (345) | +6.7% |
| 2021 | $1,330 (312) | $1,237 (408) | +7.6% |
| 2022 | $1,442 (275) | $1,338 (350) | +7.8% |
| 2023 | $1,524 (265) | $1,469 (359) | +3.7% |
| 2024 | $1,626 (274) | $1,580 (377) | +2.9% |
| 2025 | $1,670 (289) | $1,655 (399) | +0.9% |
Both prices rose. The 3 bedroom rose much faster, 56.7% against 39.7% over the 9 years, and the gap between the two sizes narrowed from 13 percentage points to under 1 point.
So a tenant still pays clearly more per square foot for the 2 bedroom, while the premium at sale has all but disappeared.
What that does to rental yield
Rent that mostly holds while relative price falls to nothing produces a higher rental yield. Gross rental yield here is 12 months of median rent per square foot divided by median sale price per square foot, both from the same year and the same set of projects.
- 2 bedroom
- 3 bedroom
| Year | 2 bedroom rental yield | 3 bedroom rental yield | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 3.11% | 2.99% | +0.12 pt |
| 2018 | 2.87% | 2.77% | +0.10 pt |
| 2019 | 2.91% | 2.70% | +0.22 pt |
| 2020 | 3.06% | 2.72% | +0.34 pt |
| 2021 | 2.91% | 2.62% | +0.29 pt |
| 2022 | 3.20% | 2.85% | +0.35 pt |
| 2023 | 3.69% | 3.30% | +0.39 pt |
| 2024 | 3.37% | 2.98% | +0.39 pt |
| 2025 | 3.29% | 2.89% | +0.40 pt |
In 2017 the rental yield on a 2 bedroom was 0.12 of a percentage point ahead of the yield on a 3 bedroom. In 2025 it is 0.40 of a point ahead. The gap between the two rental yields has more than tripled, and the 2 bedroom has been ahead in every one of the 9 years.
It is not one region doing it
A pattern like this can be an illusion created by location: if 2 bedrooms happen to sit in different parts of the island from 3 bedrooms, a national figure measures where the homes are rather than what they cost. So we ran the same comparison inside each of URA's three market segments, in the first and last years.
How much more a 2 bedroom costs than a 3 bedroom, split by rent and price:
Rent
| Region | 2017 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| CCR | +16.4% | +13.6% |
| RCR | +16.8% | +13.7% |
| OCR | +16.8% | +13.3% |
Price
| Region | 2017 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| CCR | +9.5% | +0.1% |
| RCR | +9.7% | +0.2% |
| OCR | +6.5% | -0.8% |
The same two things happen in all three regions at once. The rent premium eases about 3 percentage points and stays clearly positive. The price premium goes to zero, and in outside central (OCR) slightly below it: a 2 bedroom there now sells for a little less per square foot than a 3 bedroom.
Three regions, one result. This is not a story about where 2 bedrooms are. It is a story about the prices 2 bedrooms transact at. Rent by region for a 2 bedroom, and rental yield by region, are each followed year by year in two later articles in this series: rent by region and rental yield by region.
This also closes a question the psf article had to leave open. The convergence measured there pooled the whole market, and a pooled comparison can measure a change in what sold as much as a change in price. Measured here inside fixed panels and inside each region separately, the convergence between the 2 bedroom and the 3 bedroom holds everywhere. It is real, not a mix effect.
The smaller the home, the more price premium it lost
We have seen this exact shape once before, in shoebox units, and it is worth being precise about what is and is not being compared.
Shoebox is URA's size category, apartments of 50 sqm and below, and our shoebox series measures it on size bands against family-sized units of 1,000 to 1,500 sqft. This article measures a 2 bedroom against a 3 bedroom by bedroom count. Different yardsticks, so the numbers cannot be set side by side in one table. What can be compared is what happened in each case.
In shoebox units, the rent premium over family-sized units moved between 50.5% and 59.6% for 9 years with no trend, ending close to where it started while the price premium went from about 21% to below zero inside the same developments. Here, the rent premium over the 3 bedroom kept most of itself while the price premium went from 13.2% to 0.9%, and below zero in outside central (OCR).
The one sentence that is true in every format we have measured: small homes lost far more of their price premium than their rent premium.
How often each size is rented out
There is one thing we can measure that runs in the same order as the repricing.
Counting new leases each year against the number of homes of that bedroom count that exist, in the same projects:
| Per 100 homes | New leases signed |
|---|---|
| 1 bedroom | 40.7 |
| 2 bedroom | 26.1 |
| 3 bedroom | 12.8 |
| 4 bedroom | 10.5 |
A 2 bedroom is rented out about twice as often as a 3 bedroom. A 1 bedroom is rented out about three times as often. The ordering is the same in every year from 2021 to 2025.
This does not tell you who owns each home or why they bought it. It tells you how much of each size's stock is rented out rather than lived in by its owner, and that this rises steadily as the home gets smaller.
What we cannot explain
Two things, and we would rather name them than smooth them over.
Why the rental yield gap does not close. A home that rents for 11.5% more per square foot and sells for 0.9% more should pull in demand until that stops being true. It has not, for 9 years, and the gap between the two rental yields has only widened.
We named a candidate when we wrote this up for shoebox units: additional buyer's stamp duty on a second property, which rose from 12% to 17% in December 2021 and to 20% in April 2023, is paid at purchase on the whole price regardless of what a home earns in rent afterwards. If that is what is happening, the effect should be biggest where the most buyers are buying to rent out. That is the order the data shows: the more a size is rented out, the more of its price premium it lost. So the pattern fits the explanation. Fitting is not proof. The records never show who bought a home or why, so another cause could produce the same order, and this data cannot tell those apart.
Why the rent premium eased in the last 2 years. 3 bedroom rents held after the 2023 peak while 2 bedroom rents slipped about 2.5%. Whether that is newly completed 2 bedrooms reaching the rental market, or something else, rental contracts do not say. Falling readings over 2 years point in a direction, but two readings are too few to call a trend. We treat it as an early signal to watch, not a settled pattern.
What this tells you
A 2 bedroom rents for more per square foot than a 3 bedroom, and it has in every year since 2017. In 2025 the rent premium was 11.5%. For 7 years before that it moved between 13.7% and 16.5% with no direction, and it has fallen in each of the last 2 years, because 3 bedroom rents caught up rather than because 2 bedroom rents fell.
The price premium is the part that changed. In 2017 a resale 2 bedroom cost 13.2% more psf than a 3 bedroom in the same projects, and in 2025 it cost 0.9% more, because over the 9 years 3 bedroom prices increased 56.7% against 39.7% for 2 bedrooms. In outside central (OCR) the premium is now slightly negative, at -0.8%.
A rent premium that eased but stayed positive, against a price premium that all but disappeared, gives the 2 bedroom the higher rental yield: 3.29% against 2.89% in 2025. The gap between the two rental yields widened from 0.12 of a percentage point in 2017 to 0.40 of a point, and the 2 bedroom was ahead in all 9 years.
It happened everywhere. In the core central region (CCR), the rest of central region (RCR) and the OCR, the rent premium eased about 3 points and stayed clearly positive while the price premium went to zero or just below. So the convergence is a change in what each size sells for, not in where the homes are.
One thing runs in the same direction as the repricing: how often each size is rented out. In 2025 there were 26.1 new leases per 100 homes for a 2 bedroom against 12.8 for a 3 bedroom, so a 2 bedroom is rented out about twice as often, and it is the 2 bedroom that lost its price premium. Why the two go together, the data does not say.
What this does not tell you
- Net rental yield. These are gross figures. Maintenance, property tax, agent commission, vacancy and income tax all come out first, and they do not scale identically across sizes.
- Total return. Rental yield is one half of what an owner earns. Capital growth is the other, and there the 3 bedroom has done better: up 56.7% per square foot since 2017 against 39.7% for the 2 bedroom. The home with the higher rental yield increased less in price, the same pattern we found in shoebox units.
- Who owns each home. The lease counts measure how often homes are rented out, not who owns them or what they intended when they bought.
- Your unit. Every figure is a median across hundreds of projects. Floor, facing, condition and the project itself matter more than the bedroom count alone.
- What happens next. These 9 years are a record of what happened, not a forecast.
Method and data notes. Sale data to 4 August 2026, rental data to June 2026.
Sale data is URA caveat data for private condominiums and apartments, resales only: new sales, sub-sales, executive condominiums and collective sales are all excluded. Bedroom count is worked out from the unit record rather than stated in the caveat, and resolves for 94.7% to 97.8% of these resales each year; only transactions where it resolves are counted. A known class of large units carries a bedroom count that cannot be right for its floor area, disclosed in the first article in this series; medians taken across projects absorb its effect on the price series, and the lease-intensity table excludes those records by rule.
Rental data is URA's non-landed rental contracts. The bedroom count on a lease is stated in the listing and is present on 90.5% to 92.4% of contracts each year; only those are counted. URA reports rental floor area in 10 sqm bands rather than exact areas, so rent per square foot uses the midpoint of each lease's band.
A transaction is counted only when both the transaction and its project's record are live: retired project records, and any records attached to them, are excluded from every series in this article.
Both the rent and price series run on fixed panels so that each series describes the same buildings throughout: a project qualifies when it has at least three transactions of that bedroom count in a single year of each window, 2017 to 2019 and 2023 to 2025. Within a series, a project contributes to a year when it has at least three transactions in that year, and every figure is the median across projects rather than pooled across transactions, so a development with many sales cannot dominate. Premiums are calculated from unrounded medians.
Rental yield is computed on the intersection of the two panels, the projects that qualify on both the rent and the sale side for that bedroom count, so that the rent and the price in the ratio describe one set of buildings rather than two. This is a tightening of the construction used in our shoebox work, where the two sides ran on their own panels; it costs between 1.3% and 4.4% of the sale panel, depending on bedroom count, and makes the ratio coherent. Because of it, the rental yield inputs differ very slightly from the levels shown in the rent and price tables above. The rental yield is gross: 12 months of median rent per square foot divided by median sale price per square foot, both from the same year. It is not a return an individual owner realises.
The regional table uses the same per-year construction within each URA market segment, without the fixed-panel requirement, and is labelled to first and last years only.
Leases per 100 homes counts each year's new leases stating a bedroom count against unit records of that count, restricted to projects where our unit records match the project's declared unit total within 5%, and excluding unit records that give more than 1,000 sqft per claimed bedroom. It is approximate by construction: the unit count is today's stock while the leases span 2021 to 2025, and the bedroom count on a lease is stated by whoever listed it.
Sale data to 4 August 2026, rental data to June 2026. 2026 is excluded from every series as incomplete.
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.
More from Realila
- 3 bedroom to live in: resale or new launch, the renovation break-even
Bought to live in, 2015 to 2020, held about 5 years: a resale 3 bedroom 16 years or older could take a 7.7% renovation and still beat waiting for a launch.
- Dunearn House: price paid against resale nearby and land cost
Dunearn House buyers paid a median $3,107 psf to 19 Oct 2026, 26.9% above resale within 2 km and 2.20 times the land cost.
- URA's private home price index rose 1.4% in Q3 2026
URA's private home price index rose 1.4% in Q3 2026, after 0.5% in Q2. Landed homes rose 2.9%; non-landed homes in the outside central region rose 2.3%.
Every number in this post comes from Realila Research, dated to when it was true. For now we publish research notes from the platform to answer the community's questions; the platform itself opens to the public later.
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