In 2017, three in five new-launch shoebox buyers came from an HDB address. In 2025, it was still more than four in ten

Of everyone who bought a new-launch shoebox in 2017 and whose address type the caveat records, 60.3% were buying from an HDB flat. The share rose before it fell: a peak of 64.7% in 2018, then down to 43.7% by 2025, a fall of 16.6 points from the 2017 start and 21.0 points from the 2018 peak.

The same measure on 3 bedroom units fell much further over the same nine years, from 52.1% to 28.9%, a fall of 23.2 points against shoebox's 16.6. The small end held its buyer more than the large end did. The rest of what we found about shoebox units is on the shoebox units guide.

Key takeaways

• Against 3 bedroom. Shoebox new-launch HDB share fell 16.6 points; the same measure on 3 bedroom units fell 23.2, and shoebox ran higher than 3 bedroom in both years measured. Against 3 bedroom
• Volume. New launch was the larger market through 2021; resale has been larger since 2022. Volume
• Three crossings, not one. New launch and resale swapped the HDB-share lead three times on shoebox. On 3 bedroom they crossed once. Three crossings, not one
• Same size, not a relocation. HDB caveat counts moved with each market's own volume rather than shifting from new launch into resale. Same size, not a relocation

Against 3 bedroom

Share of buyers giving an HDB address, of those whose address type is recorded.

• New launch
• Resale

Year	New launch	Resale
2017	60.3%	55.4%
2018	64.7%	54.2%
2019	59.8%	48.8%
2020	55.0%	53.3%
2021	44.3%	52.5%
2022	42.4%	50.0%
2023	47.8%	45.7%
2024	49.1%	44.1%
2025	43.7%	45.1%

Resale changed far less: 55.4% to 45.1%, a fall of 10.3 points against new launch's 16.6. The retreat is a new-launch phenomenon.

Volume

Transactions, new launch and resale, national. Context only: no cause is attributed to any of it.

Year	New launch	Resale
2017	1,382	655
2018	1,583	701
2019	1,897	435
2020	1,620	630
2021	1,696	1,304
2022	689	1,191
2023	650	1,064
2024	460	1,137
2025	982	1,217

New launch was the larger market every year through 2021. From 2022 it was smaller, and has stayed smaller through 2025. One crossing, a fact about which market had more transactions, not about which had the higher HDB share below.

Three crossings, not one

New launch and resale traded the HDB-share lead three times. New launch fell below resale in 2021 and 2022, rose back above it in 2023 and 2024, and fell below again in 2025, ending 1.4 points behind. On 3 bedroom the two crossed once, in 2022, and stayed crossed. This is a different pattern from the one on 3 bedroom, not a variant of it.

Same size, not a relocation

Whether the HDB buyer moved from new launch to resale, or both markets simply changed size, is answerable from caveat counts rather than shares. Between 2019 and 2024, HDB caveats on new launch fell from 1,074 to 195 while resale's rose from 210 to 501. Both moved with their own market's total rather than against it: new-launch volume fell over the same span, from 1,897 to 460, and resale volume rose, from 435 to 1,137. Nothing in this table shows a fixed pool of buyers moving from new launch to resale.

What this does not tell you

• What "N.A" means. The caveat records an address indicator with three values, HDB, private and N.A. Nothing in our sources documents what N.A denotes. The Method sets out what it looks like on this fence.
• Whether the buyer was an upgrader. An HDB address at the time of purchase is not the same as selling a flat to fund the purchase.
• Why new launch and resale crossed three times. This note measures the pattern, not its cause.
• Anything about a specific project. These are shares and counts across the whole format, not any one development.

Method and data notes. Sale data to 22 August 2026.

The fence is area_sqft BETWEEN 400 AND 538, no bedroom filter, national, split by type_of_sale (New Sale / Resale), 2017 to 2025. Nine years, two markets, seven metrics: total sales, HDB, private and N.A counts, and three HDB shares that differ only in denominator: excluding N.A, including it, and N.A's own share of the total. The excluding-N.A share is the one carried in the body; the other two are published alongside it. This is a floor-area fence, not a bedroom fence: a shoebox and a 1 bedroom unit overlap without either containing the other.

purchaser_indicator is URA REALIS's Purchaser Address Indicator, carried through unchanged. Nothing in the source states what N.A denotes, so all three denominators are published rather than one asserted as correct.

On new launch, N.A swings hard, and harder here than on 3 bedroom units: it peaks at 26.1% of new-launch sales in 2018, then collapses to 5.3% in 2019, a 20.8-point fall in a single year, before climbing back to 19.8% by 2025. 3 bedroom units show the same peak-then-floor shape, at a smaller fall and a fuller recovery. Excluding it from the HDB share therefore excludes a different-sized slice of the population in every year, not a fixed one. Both choices are poor: excluding N.A moves the denominator under the reader's feet across the series; including it treats an unexplained code as a confirmed "not HDB, not private" sale. Excluding is the one printed here, as the less bad of the two, not because it resolves the problem, but because it keeps the share's meaning ("HDB's share of sales that identify a buyer type") stable even as the size of the excluded group is not.

Three year-cells sit under a 600-sale excluded-N.A denominator: shoebox new launch 2024 (397), shoebox resale 2019 (430) and shoebox new launch 2023 (571), and carry the same caution any small cell does.

Sale data to 22 August 2026.