What is a same home price index?

A same home price index measures how much home prices have moved by comparing the price of each home with the price the same home sold for earlier. This note explains how a same home price index works, how it differs from a median price and from URA's index, what it does well, where it falls short, and when to use it.

How a same home price index works

A same home price index is built from homes that have sold at least twice. For each of those homes, the index compares the price at one sale with the price at the home's next sale. Here is one home, with made-up numbers.

Sale of the same home	Quarter	Price per sq ft
Earlier sale	Q2 2019	$1,200
Next sale	Q2 2025	$1,500
Rise in this home's price per sq ft	Over 6 years	+25%

Illustration, made-up numbers.

The home's location, size, floor, facing and layout were the same at both sales. In other words, comparing a home with its own earlier sale removes the influence of location, size, floor, facing and layout on the price change. Two things still differed between the two sales: the home was 6 years older at the second sale, and it may have been renovated in between, which the sale records do not show.

A same home price index combines thousands of homes like this one. Each home's two sales are a different number of years apart, so each home covers a different stretch of time. The index puts all of these stretches together to work out how much prices moved in each quarter.

Why a median price can move when no home changed in price

A median price can rise or fall because a different mix of homes sold in a quarter, even when no home changed in price. For example, the median moves when more large units sell, more homes in the city centre, more new launches compared with resales, more freehold homes, more homes in newer buildings, or more homes on high floors.

Property Price Indices, Explained shows a real case: in the second quarter of 2026, the median price of private homes fell while URA's index rose, mainly because far fewer new homes sold in the Core Central Region (CCR) that quarter.

A change in the mix of homes sold cannot move a same home price index, because each home is only ever compared with its own earlier price.

How a same home price index compares with other measures

Each common measure of home prices answers a slightly different question, and each can be moved by something other than a change in prices.

Two of these measures depend on a home's features. A home's features are the facts about the home that affect its price, for example:

• floor area and number of bedrooms
• floor level, facing, view and layout
• the age of the building
• tenure: freehold, or the number of years left on a leasehold
• location, including the region and the distance to the nearest MRT station
• whether the home is completed or still under construction

A hedonic index records some of these features for every sale and estimates how much each feature adds to or takes away from the price. It then works out what a home with the same features would have cost in each period. URA's index uses features such as the age of the building, unit size, tenure, property type, completion status and closeness to MRT stations (Property Price Indices, Explained). A feature that the hedonic model does not record, such as the view from a particular unit, is not held the same.

A same home price index works without a list of features. Comparing a home with its own earlier sale keeps every feature that does not change the same, whether or not anyone recorded it. The age of the building is the exception, because every home is older at its second sale.

Measure	Question it answers	What else can move it
Median price	What did the middle sale in the period cost?	Any change in the mix of homes sold, including their size
Median price per sq ft	What did the middle sale cost per square foot?	Any change in the mix of homes sold, apart from their size
Hedonic index (used by URA and HDB)	What would a home with fixed features have cost in each period?	Features of a home that the model does not record, and any error in how the model estimates the features it does record
Same home price index (used by Realila for private homes)	How did the prices of the same homes change between their sales?	The homes getting older between their two sales, renovation, and which homes happened to sell twice

Our guide How property is measured in Singapore applies all four measures to the same private home sales from 2017 to 2025 and shows how far apart their answers are.

What this tells you

• A change in the mix of homes sold cannot move it. A quarter with more large units, more city-centre homes or fewer new launches does not change the figure by itself.
• It keeps a home's features the same without recording them. Comparing a home with itself keeps the floor area, floor level, facing, view, layout, tenure and location the same, including features that no sale record captures.
• Every figure rests on actual sale prices of real homes. A reader can follow how the figure is built from pairs of sales.

What this does not tell you

• Homes are older at their second sale. Every home in the index is older at its second sale than at its first, so the index figure combines the change in market prices with the effect of the homes getting older. A same home price index cannot separate the two. A hedonic index, such as URA's, includes the age of the building as a feature and compares homes of the same age, so it can separate the effect of age, as far as its model estimates that effect correctly. A median price cannot separate ageing either: as the homes in a market get older year by year, an older mix of homes is sold, and the median moves with that mix.
• Renovations are invisible. A home renovated between its two sales can sell for more, and the index counts that extra as a rise in prices.
• Only homes that sold at least twice count. Homes that rarely change hands, and homes in newer projects that have not been resold yet, are missing until they sell again.
• Many first sales are purchases of new homes. A new home's launch price is set before the building is finished, and the home's next sale is the resale of a completed, older home. Between 2017 and 2025, pairs that started with a new home, bought from the developer or as a sub sale, grew 29%, while pairs that started with a resale grew 40% (How property is measured in Singapore). For a similar reason, the Market Snapshot shows homes first bought new from the developer separately from homes bought and resold on the resale market.
• Figures for recent quarters can change. Newly recorded sales add new pairs, and the index is worked out again with them, so the figures for the latest 90 days and for provisional quarters can shift. Once a quarter is final, 180 days after it ends, its figure stays fixed.
• Small groups give less reliable figures. Few homes in the Core Central Region (CCR) sell twice in any quarter, so CCR figures rise and fall more than figures for the whole market.

How to use a same home price index

• To see how much prices moved over a period. Read the change in the index between two dates, for example the change over the past year. The level of the index, for example 180, only means something compared with the base quarter, which is set to 100.
• To compare one home with the market. Compare the change in a home's price between two sales with the change in the index over the same years. For example, if a home's price rose 20% between its purchase and its sale, and the index rose 30% over the same years, that home did worse than the market as a whole.
• To compare parts of the market. Compare regions, or homes first bought new with homes first bought on the resale market, over the same period.

When to use a same home price index, and when to use something else

A same home price index is the better measure when you want the price change over a year or longer, for the whole market or for a region, and especially after a period when the mix of homes sold shifted, such as a quarter with many or few new launches.

Another measure is the better choice in these cases:

• To estimate what one particular home is worth today, use recent sales of comparable homes in the same development.
• To judge whether a new launch price is fair, compare it with recent resale prices nearby, because a same home price index only counts a new home once it is resold.
• For a small group, check the repeat sales count shown with the 90-day figures before relying on the figure.
• To compare price levels between HDB flats and private homes, use neither index's level, because each index measures its own market against its own base quarter.

How the Realila index relates to URA's index

URA's index covers all non-landed private homes sold in each quarter, including homes sold at new launches, and uses a hedonic method. The Realila Same Home Price Index counts a home only once the home has sold a second time. Because the two indexes are built from different sets of sales with different methods, their figures for the same quarter can differ.

Across the private market as a whole, the Realila index follows URA's index closely. In the Core Central Region (CCR), the two indexes usually agree on whether prices rose or fell over a year, and often differ on by how much. The quarterly figures in the Market Snapshot show both indexes side by side.

The exact sales Realila uses, the sales it leaves out and the settings behind the index are in How we measure prices and sales.