A two-bedroom out-yields a three-bedroom in every region in every year since 2017. In 2025 the lead is widest in prime, 0.57 points, where both yield the least.

A two-bedroom condominium out-yields a three-bedroom in every part of Singapore, and it has done so in every year since 2017. In 2025 the gross yield on a two-bedroom was 3.12% in the core central region, 3.45% in the rest of central and 3.40% outside central. A three-bedroom in the same regions returned 2.55%, 2.96% and 2.97%.

That is 27 region and year combinations, and the two-bedroom leads in all 27. The lead is widest in prime, at 0.57 percentage points, which is also where both configurations yield the least. It is narrowest in the suburbs, at 0.42 points, and in the city fringe it stands at 0.49.

The reason is the same in every region. A two-bedroom used to cost about a tenth more per square foot to buy than a three-bedroom; by 2025 it cost about the same. Its rent, meanwhile, stayed 13% to 14% higher per square foot. When the price premium disappears and the rent premium survives, the yield gap opens. The market-wide version of this story, a two-bedroom at 3.29% against 2.89%, was the subject of the previous article in this series; this one splits it by region.

Key takeaways

• In 2025 a two-bedroom yields 3.12% in the core central region, 3.45% in the rest of central and 3.40% outside central; a three-bedroom yields 2.55%, 2.96% and 2.97%. Yield by region
• The two-bedroom leads in all 27 region and year combinations. The lead is widest in prime at 0.57 points and narrowest in the suburbs at 0.42. Reading the tables
• The lead has widened in every region since 2017: from 0.26 to 0.57 points in prime, 0.15 to 0.49 in the city fringe and 0.13 to 0.42 in the suburbs. Why the gap opened
• Prime yields least for both configurations in every year of the series. The highest yield anywhere in the table is a suburban two-bedroom in 2023, at 3.96%. What moved

Yield by region

Gross rental yield, median monthly rent per square foot annualised against median sale price per square foot, computed within each region and year on projects that had both a rental and a sale record for that configuration. Percentages; the gap is in percentage points.

Core central region (CCR)

Year	Two-bedroom	Three-bedroom	Gap
2017	2.88%	2.62%	0.26
2018	2.64%	2.49%	0.15
2019	2.63%	2.40%	0.23
2020	2.73%	2.40%	0.33
2021	2.56%	2.21%	0.35
2022	2.87%	2.50%	0.37
2023	3.33%	2.86%	0.46
2024	3.06%	2.68%	0.38
2025	3.12%	2.55%	0.57

Rest of central region (RCR)

Year	Two-bedroom	Three-bedroom	Gap
2017	3.08%	2.94%	0.15
2018	3.09%	2.74%	0.34
2019	3.04%	2.68%	0.36
2020	2.97%	2.64%	0.32
2021	2.96%	2.62%	0.34
2022	3.16%	2.80%	0.37
2023	3.74%	3.28%	0.45
2024	3.51%	3.03%	0.48
2025	3.45%	2.96%	0.49

Outside central region (OCR)

Year	Two-bedroom	Three-bedroom	Gap
2017	3.05%	2.92%	0.13
2018	2.91%	2.71%	0.20
2019	2.95%	2.72%	0.23
2020	3.05%	2.70%	0.35
2021	2.98%	2.64%	0.33
2022	3.47%	2.92%	0.54
2023	3.96%	3.41%	0.55
2024	3.46%	3.11%	0.34
2025	3.40%	2.97%	0.42

Reading the tables

Two things live in these tables and they should be read separately. The level of yield says how much rent a dollar of purchase price earns in a region; the gap says how much more a two-bedroom earns than a three-bedroom bought in the same place at the same time.

On level, the ordering never changes. Prime yields least for both configurations in every one of the nine years, because prime prices run far ahead of prime rents. The city fringe and the suburbs trade places at the top: in 2025 the city fringe two-bedroom edges the suburban one, 3.45% against 3.40%, while for three-bedrooms it is the suburbs by a hair, 2.97% against 2.96%.

On the gap, there is no regional ordering to find. Which region shows the widest two-bedroom lead changes six times across nine years: prime in 2017, the city fringe in 2018 and 2019, the suburbs in 2020, prime in 2021, the suburbs again in 2022 and 2023, the city fringe in 2024 and prime in 2025. A table showing only 2017 and 2025 would suggest prime leads at both ends; the seven years between say otherwise. What holds everywhere is the direction. Three regions across nine years make 27 comparisons. In all 27 the two-bedroom yields more than the three-bedroom, and in every region its lead is wider in 2025 than it was in 2017.

Why the gap opened

A yield is rent divided by price, so the lead can widen from either side. The rent side did not do it. In 2017 tenants paid 16.4% more per square foot for a two-bedroom than a three-bedroom in prime, 16.8% in the city fringe and 16.8% in the suburbs; in 2025 the premiums were 13.6%, 13.7% and 13.3%. Between those endpoints the regions wandered, the city fringe premium running highest from 2020 to 2023 and peaking at 23.4% in 2022 while prime's fell to 11.2% that year, and the suburban premium dipping to 10.3% in 2018, but they ended the series almost exactly where they began relative to one another, a few points lower everywhere.

The price side did it. In 2017 a prime two-bedroom sold for $1,765 per square foot against $1,612 for a three-bedroom; in 2025 the two figures were $2,272 and $2,270. In the city fringe, $1,258 against $1,147 became $1,868 against $1,864. In the suburbs, $982 against $922 became $1,489 against $1,501, the three-bedroom now marginally dearer per square foot. Three-bedroom prices grew faster than two-bedroom prices in every region, 41% against 29% in prime, 63% against 48% in the city fringe and 63% against 52% in the suburbs, and the two-bedroom's price premium was consumed by it. A two-bedroom that rents for a seventh more per square foot and costs the same per square foot yields more, and the arithmetic is the whole finding.

One note on that arithmetic. The yields in the tables are computed on paired projects, those with both a rental and a sale record for the configuration in that region and year. The rent and price figures in this section are medians across all projects with a record on that side. Dividing one by the other will not reproduce the yield exactly, and is not meant to.

What moved

The series has one event in it. Rents surged in 2022 and 2023 and yields followed, peaking in 2023 in every region: 3.96% for a suburban two-bedroom, 3.74% in the city fringe, 3.33% in prime. Prices caught up through 2024 and 2025 and yields eased from the peak without giving back the ground gained since 2021.

Beneath that, rents rose most where they were lowest. Suburban two-bedroom rents rose 57% per square foot from 2017 to 2025, city fringe 50%, prime 35%; three-bedroom rents rose a little faster still in each region. Prices did the same, and so the regional shape of yields barely changed: the suburbs and city fringe both around three and a half percent for a two-bedroom, prime around three.

Against the market-wide picture

The previous article put the market-wide two-bedroom yield at 3.29% against 2.89% for a three-bedroom, and found that the lead had more than tripled since 2017. The regional tables show that tripling is not a prime story or a suburban story but all three at once: the lead grew by a factor of 3.3 in the city fringe, 3.2 in the suburbs and 2.2 in prime, and the market-wide figure sits, as it should, between the regional ones. Where the regions differ is level, not direction, and the difference in level is the price of prime.

What this does not tell you

• These are gross yields, before maintenance, property tax, agent commission and vacancy. Net figures are lower and the gap between configurations is smaller in absolute terms.
• The yield of a region is not the yield of a unit. Floor, facing, age and the specific project move a unit's rent and price more than configuration does.
• A higher yield is not a better investment. Prime yields least in every year of this series and prime prices rose anyway; total return is a different question.
• Nothing here says why tenants pay more per square foot for a two-bedroom. That rent premium is real, measured and stable at the endpoints, and unexplained.

Method

Yields are computed within each URA market segment and year on projects that had at least three rental contracts and three sale transactions for the configuration, a paired construction, without a fixed-panel requirement across years. Rents use the bedroom count URA records on each rental contract; only the floor area is banded, so rent per square foot uses the midpoint of each 10 sqm band, which makes ratios between configurations more reliable than levels. Bedroom coverage on rental contracts runs between 90.5% and 93.0% per year. The market-wide figures in the previous article use a fixed panel of projects and are not directly comparable to these regional ones. 2026 is excluded: seven months of rental data exist. Data to July 2026.