Published 12 September 2026
Last updated 30 October 2026
A 3 bedroom condo rented for S$4.20 per square foot a month in 2025, up 53% since 2017, and the gross yield fell from 2.99% to 2.89%
By Realila
A 3 bedroom condominium rented for a median S$4.20 per square foot a month in 2025, against S$2.74 per square foot in 2017. That is a rise of 53% over 9 years, and almost all of it happened in 2 of those years.
Over the same period the gross rental yield fell, from 2.99% to 2.89%. Rents rose a long way and prices rose further.
In monthly terms, the median 3 bedroom rented for S$5,500 in 2025, across 23,074 contracts.
What is in this note
- What it rents for: median rent per square foot from 2017 to 2025, and when in those 9 years it actually moved.
- Why the gross rental yield did not follow rent: what the gross rental yield did over the same period, and why a large rent rise did not lift it.
- By region: rent per square foot in 2017 and 2025 for the CCR, the RCR and the OCR, and how far each rose.
- What the most expensive square foot returns: gross rental yield by region, where the ordering runs opposite to price.
What it rents for
Median monthly rent per square foot, all regions.
| Year | Rent psf | Developments |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | S$2.74 | 1,133 |
| 2018 | S$2.75 | 1,172 |
| 2019 | S$2.74 | 1,211 |
| 2020 | S$2.71 | 1,170 |
| 2021 | S$2.80 | 1,239 |
| 2022 | S$3.34 | 1,192 |
| 2023 | S$4.12 | 1,195 |
| 2024 | S$4.11 | 1,179 |
| 2025 | S$4.20 | 1,197 |
The median hardly moved from 2017 to 2021, then rose sharply in 2022 and 2023. Between 2017 and 2021 the median moved from S$2.74 to S$2.80, a rise of 2% over 4 years. Between 2021 and 2023 the median went from S$2.80 to S$4.12, a rise of 47% in 2 years. Since then the median has been flat.
Why the gross rental yield did not follow rent
A 53% rise in rent should raise the gross rental yield, but the gross rental yield was lower in 2025 than in 2017.
| Year | Gross rental yield |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 2.99% |
| 2018 | 2.77% |
| 2019 | 2.70% |
| 2020 | 2.72% |
| 2021 | 2.62% |
| 2022 | 2.85% |
| 2023 | 3.30% |
| 2024 | 2.98% |
| 2025 | 2.89% |
The gross rental yield fell from 2017 to 2021, rose through 2022 and 2023, and has fallen back since. After 9 years, the gross rental yield is below where it started.
Prices rose further than rents, so the gross rental yield ended the 9 years lower than it started. Outside central, the 3 bedroom resale market rose 62.9% per square foot over the same period, and more in some regions than others. If a landlord's rent rises by half and the price of the property rises by half as well, the gross rental yield does not move.
By region
Rent per square foot in 2025, and how far each region has come.
| Region | 2017 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core central (CCR) | S$3.38 | S$4.69 | +38.7% |
| Rest of central (RCR) | S$2.73 | S$4.20 | +53.7% |
| Outside central (OCR) | S$2.30 | S$3.72 | +61.4% |
Rent per square foot rose most in the OCR and least in the CCR, the same ordering as in the price note. The gap between the OCR and the CCR narrowed on rent, as it did on price. A CCR 3 bedroom rented for 47% more per square foot than an OCR 3 bedroom in 2017 and 26% more in 2025.
The rest-of-central figure, S$4.20, is the same number as the national median above and a different measurement: one pools a market segment, the other pools the island.
What the most expensive square foot returns
Gross rental yield is lowest in the CCR, the region where price and rent per square foot are highest.
- Core central (CCR)
- Rest of central (RCR)
- Outside central (OCR)
| Year | CCR | RCR | OCR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2.62% | 2.94% | 2.92% |
| 2018 | 2.49% | 2.74% | 2.71% |
| 2019 | 2.40% | 2.68% | 2.72% |
| 2020 | 2.40% | 2.64% | 2.70% |
| 2021 | 2.21% | 2.62% | 2.64% |
| 2022 | 2.50% | 2.80% | 2.92% |
| 2023 | 2.86% | 3.28% | 3.41% |
| 2024 | 2.68% | 3.03% | 3.11% |
| 2025 | 2.55% | 2.96% | 2.97% |
The CCR has the lowest gross rental yield in all 9 years. In 2025 the CCR's gross rental yield is 2.55% against 2.97% outside central, a difference of 0.42 percentage points on an asset that costs 51% more per square foot.
A prime 3 bedroom is bought for reasons a gross rental yield does not measure, and its rent is high in absolute terms, S$7,500 a month against S$4,500 outside central. A buyer choosing on gross rental yield alone would look outside central.
What this tells you
Rent moved a long way in a short time. A 3 bedroom condominium rented for S$2.74 per square foot a month in 2017 and S$2.80 per square foot in 2021, a rise of 2% across 4 years. Then the median went to S$4.12 by 2023, a rise of 47% in 2 years, and the median has been flat at around S$4.20 since. Over the 9 years the rise was 53%, almost all of it in 2 of those years.
The gross rental yield is lower now than it was 9 years ago, 2.89% against 2.99%, in spite of that rise. Rents went up and prices went up further, so a landlord buying today collects more rent on a more expensive asset and ends up with slightly less return than one buying in 2017.
Rent rose in every region and by different amounts. The OCR rose 61.4%, the RCR 53.7%, and the CCR 38.7%. That is the same ordering as price, where the CCR also rose least, and the effect is that the regions have moved closer together: a CCR 3 bedroom rented for 47% more per square foot than an OCR 3 bedroom in 2017 and 26% more in 2025.
Gross rental yield is lowest in the most expensive region. The CCR has the lowest gross rental yield in every one of the 9 years, and in 2025 its gross rental yield is 2.55% against 2.97% in the OCR. The more expensive square foot returns less, by 0.42 percentage points on an asset costing 51% more per square foot.
A prime 3 bedroom rents for S$7,500 a month against S$4,500 in the OCR, so the absolute income is much larger, and buyers there are paying for things a gross rental yield does not measure. A buyer choosing on gross rental yield alone would look outside the CCR.
What this does not tell you
- Net rental yield. This note covers gross rental yield. Maintenance, property tax, agent fees, vacancy and income tax all come out of that figure, and they take more from a low rental yield than from a high rental yield.
- Your specific unit. These are medians across more than a thousand developments. Floor, facing, furnishing and lease timing move a rent more than the region does.
- Whether rents keep rising. Rent has been flat for 2 years after rising in 2022 and 2023. The 9 years of rent data are a record of what happened and do not predict what comes next.
- What a landlord made. Gross rental yield is income against price at a point in time. What an owner actually made depends on what they paid and when, which is a different question.
Method and data notes. Rental data to 1 July 2026 and sale data to 1 September 2026.
Rents are medians of URA rental contract data for private condominiums and apartments, 3 bedroom, by contract commencement date. Rent per square foot uses the midpoint of the contract's recorded floor-area band, since URA publishes rental areas in bands rather than exact figures. Prices are medians of URA caveat data on the same population. Gross rental yield is annualised rent over price, computed within the instrument rather than by dividing two published medians.
Four constructions describe 3 bedroom rent in this corpus and they are not interchangeable. The national series above pools every qualifying project in each year, with no fixed panel. The regional series pools within a market segment, per year. A fixed-panel series also exists, holding the same 1,213 developments across all 9 years, and it gives a national rise of 49.6% rather than 53.4% because the panel's composition differs from the market's. The monthly figure quoted in dollars pools every contract with no minimum sample size. This note uses the unpanelled national series and the per-year regional series throughout, and says so here because the four answer different questions and only three are comparable.
The rent series rest on more than a thousand developments nationally and several hundred in each region. The gross rental yield figures rest on fewer, because a gross rental yield needs a development that both sold and rented in the same year: 460 to 467 rent developments against 329 to 391 sale developments nationally, and between 62 and 225 paired developments regionally.
Rental data to 1 July 2026 and sale data to 1 September 2026. The national gross rental yield by year was measured at an earlier snapshot, 1 June 2026, and is cited here rather than re-derived.
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.
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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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