Published 17 September 2026
In 2017, half of new two-bedroom buyers came from an HDB address. In 2025, it was under two in five
By Realila
Of everyone who bought a new-launch two-bedroom in 2017 and whose address type the caveat records, 53.6% were buying from an HDB flat. In 2025 that was 37.7%, a fall of 15.9 points.
Resale fell about half as far, from 40.3% to 33.1%. The same measure on three-bedroom units fell further still, from 52.1% to 28.9%, a fall of 23.2 points against two-bedroom's 15.9. The rest of what we found about two-bedroom units is on the two-bedroom condo guide.
What is in this note
- Who was buying: new launches and resales compared, across all nine years.
- The regions converged: the same question asked separately of the core central region (CCR), the city fringe (RCR) and the suburbs (OCR), and what happened to the gap between the region with the highest HDB share and the region with the lowest.
- Tenure: freehold buildings against leasehold ones, with new launches and resales shown separately.
- Age: resales only, grouped by how old the building was when it sold.
Who was buying
Share of buyers giving an HDB address, of those whose address type is recorded.
- New launch
- Resale
| Year | New launch | Resale |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 53.6% | 40.3% |
| 2018 | 50.8% | 39.3% |
| 2019 | 51.6% | 34.2% |
| 2020 | 49.0% | 39.4% |
| 2021 | 41.5% | 38.1% |
| 2022 | 36.6% | 39.3% |
| 2023 | 35.8% | 35.3% |
| 2024 | 39.7% | 34.7% |
| 2025 | 37.7% | 33.1% |
New launch ran above resale for five years, dipped below in 2022, and has been above again since. Both end lower than they began, and the new-launch share fell twice as far.
The regions converged
New launch:
- Core central (CCR)
- Rest of central (RCR)
- Outside central (OCR)
| Year | CCR | RCR | OCR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 29.2% | 48.9% | 68.0% |
| 2018 | 17.4% | 48.3% | 61.9% |
| 2019 | 24.1% | 50.7% | 62.8% |
| 2020 | 21.0% | 45.3% | 59.4% |
| 2021 | 21.4% | 37.7% | 57.1% |
| 2022 | 24.9% | 35.4% | 47.3% |
| 2023 | 26.5% | 33.2% | 42.2% |
| 2024 | 20.8% | 31.2% | 45.0% |
| 2025 | 26.1% | 36.1% | 47.5% |
Resale:
| Year | CCR | RCR | OCR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 24.6% | 40.8% | 49.7% |
| 2018 | 19.6% | 37.6% | 48.4% |
| 2019 | 17.6% | 33.5% | 43.8% |
| 2020 | 20.5% | 37.5% | 48.5% |
| 2021 | 19.0% | 33.7% | 47.3% |
| 2022 | 21.1% | 35.6% | 47.1% |
| 2023 | 21.6% | 34.7% | 40.6% |
| 2024 | 20.4% | 33.0% | 41.2% |
| 2025 | 16.7% | 31.9% | 39.8% |
The core central region draws the fewest HDB buyers, the city fringe more, the suburbs the most, in every year of both new launches and resales. What changes is the gap between the suburbs and the core central region. Among new launches it narrows from 38.8 points to 21.4, and the suburbs do nearly all of the moving. Among resales it barely narrows at all, from 25.1 points to 23.1.
Tenure
New launch:
| Year | Freehold | Leasehold |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 37.7% | 55.1% |
| 2018 | 33.4% | 53.5% |
| 2019 | 32.8% | 55.2% |
| 2020 | 30.9% | 52.2% |
| 2021 | 32.3% | 44.3% |
| 2022 | 31.6% | 39.5% |
| 2023 | 29.6% | 38.2% |
| 2024 | 32.7% | 41.0% |
| 2025 | 24.6% | 38.7% |
Resale:
| Year | Freehold | Leasehold |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 35.3% | 45.1% |
| 2018 | 33.1% | 44.1% |
| 2019 | 27.3% | 39.0% |
| 2020 | 31.7% | 44.4% |
| 2021 | 28.8% | 43.4% |
| 2022 | 30.2% | 43.7% |
| 2023 | 28.5% | 38.6% |
| 2024 | 27.1% | 37.9% |
| 2025 | 22.7% | 37.6% |
Leasehold buildings draw more HDB buyers than freehold ones in every year of both new launches and resales. The gap between them moves in opposite directions on the two. Among new launches the gap narrows, from 17.4 points to 14.1, because the leasehold share fell faster. Among resales it widens, from 9.8 points to 14.9, because the freehold share fell faster.
Age
Resales only. A new launch is a sale of a building that has just completed or has not completed yet, so a new launch is never more than a few years old and there is nothing to compare.
| Year | 0 to 5 | 6 to 10 | 16 and older |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 42.3% | 37.1% | 39.3% |
| 2018 | 45.0% | 33.2% | 34.5% |
| 2019 | 39.0% | 29.6% | 32.5% |
| 2020 | 46.9% | 39.6% | 35.3% |
| 2021 | 45.1% | 39.8% | 34.7% |
| 2022 | 40.6% | 44.6% | 35.3% |
| 2023 | 42.9% | 37.6% | 30.4% |
| 2024 | 38.1% | 38.8% | 28.8% |
| 2025 | 38.4% | 39.8% | 24.2% |
Buildings over sixteen years old are the only group that goes anywhere. Their HDB share sits between 32% and 35% from 2018 through 2022, then falls in each of the last three years to 24.2%. Buildings under ten years old end within a few points of where they started, in both groups.
Buildings between eleven and fifteen years old are left out of this table. That group clears our evidence floor in only three of the nine years, and on those three it is flat, so there is nothing we can say about it.
What this tells you
The HDB buyer has not left the two-bedroom market. In 2025 they were still 37.7% of new-launch buyers and 33.1% of resale buyers, which is a large minority of both. What has changed is which parts of the market they buy in.
There is one pattern that runs through every cut in this note. Wherever HDB buyers made up the largest share of two-bedroom buyers in 2017, that is where their share fell furthest by 2025. Four comparisons show it.
The first is region. In the suburbs, HDB buyers were 68.0% of new-launch two-bedroom buyers in 2017 and 47.5% in 2025, a fall of 20.5 points. In the core central region they were 29.2% in 2017 and 26.1% in 2025, a fall of 3.1 points. The suburbs started highest and fell furthest. The core central region started lowest and barely moved.
The second is new launches against resales. HDB buyers were 53.6% of new-launch two-bedroom buyers in 2017 against 40.3% of resale buyers, so they were more present at new launches. By 2025 the new-launch share had fallen 15.9 points and the resale share 7.2 points. New launches started higher and fell twice as far.
The third is tenure, among new launches. Leasehold buildings drew 55.1% HDB buyers in 2017 against freehold's 37.7%. By 2025 leasehold drew 38.7% and freehold 24.6%: leasehold fell 16.4 points and freehold 13.1. Leasehold started higher and fell further.
The fourth is the age of the building, among resales. In 2017, buildings over sixteen years old drew 39.3% HDB buyers, close to the 42.3% drawn by buildings under five years old. By 2025 the oldest buildings drew 24.2% while the newest still drew 38.4%. The oldest stock lost 15.1 points; the newest lost 3.9.
One comparison runs the other way, and it is worth naming. Among resales, freehold buildings drew fewer HDB buyers than leasehold ones in 2017, 35.3% against 45.1%, and freehold still fell further by 2025: down 12.6 points against leasehold's 7.5. That is the one cut in this note where the part of the market with fewer HDB buyers to begin with lost more of them.
So the retreat is not spread evenly across the two-bedroom market. The suburbs, new launches, leasehold new launches and older resale stock are the four parts where HDB buyers were most represented in 2017, and all four are where their share fell furthest. The core central region, resales, freehold new launches and newer resale stock all started lower and all moved less. Resale tenure is the exception.
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 here.
- 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.
- What happened in 2026. This note covers nine complete calendar years, 2017 to 2025. Sale data runs to 23 August 2026, so a 2026 figure would cover under eight months and would move as the year finishes. We will look at 2026 separately once the year is complete enough to compare.
- Why any of it happened. This note measures the patterns. It does not attribute them to policy, to price, or to anything else.
- Anything about a specific project. These are shares across hundreds of developments a year.
Method and data notes. Sale data to 23 August 2026.
Shares from URA caveat data for private condominiums and apartments, by the purchaser address indicator the caveat records, split by whether the sale was a new launch or a resale. Bedroom counts are those resolved from the unit's own record.
The indicator takes three values: HDB, private, and N.A. This note reports the HDB share of those recorded as HDB or private, excluding N.A from the denominator, on the same basis as who buys a three-bedroom. N.A sits almost entirely on new launches: it peaks at 24.5% of new-launch sales in 2018, falls to 7.3% in 2019, and is back at 22.8% by 2025, while resales never carry more than 1.5%, the highest year being 2019.
Tenure is classified from the project's own lease string rather than from the transaction record, which files a 999-year lease as leasehold. The boundary is 900 years, which sits inside an empty gap in the recorded terms. Every two-bedroom caveat in this window classified.
Age is the contract year less the building's completion year. The group of buildings over sixteen years old gains newly eligible buildings each year, so the newest building in it moves from a 2001 completion to a 2009 one across the window. Its median completion year moves only from 1997 to 1999 and its oldest building does not change at all, so the group is substantially the same buildings throughout.
Some cells rest on fewer than 600 caveats recorded HDB or private and are named rather than left to be found: nine of the eighteen core central region cells, one city-fringe new-launch year, six freehold new-launch years, and one year each in the three age groups printed above.
Sale data to 23 August 2026.
More from Realila
- In 2017, three in five new-launch shoebox buyers came from an HDB address. In 2025, it was still more than four in ten
Among new-launch shoebox buyers (400 to 538 sqft) whose address type is known, 60.3% gave an HDB address in 2017, peaking at 64.7% in 2018 before falling to 43.7% in 2025, a fall of 16.6 points from 2017 and 21.0 from the peak. The same HDB share on three-bedroom new launch fell further over the same nine years, from 52.1% to 28.9%, a fall of 23.2 points. Shoebox ran higher than three-bedroom in both years measured, with a smaller fall on either basis.
- In 2017 half of new three-bedroom buyers came from an HDB address, and by 2025 it was under a third
Among new-launch three-bedroom buyers whose address type is known, 52.1% gave an HDB address in 2017 and 28.9% in 2025. Resale fell far less, from 36.9% to 27.2%, and the two legs crossed in 2022. The retreat is sharpest at the large end: four-bedroom new-launch fell 26.9 points against 13.5 for one-bedroom. And the leg the upgrader left is the one that returned less.
- A new 3 bedroom outside central rents for more per square foot than a 26-year-old one in prime, and that first became true in 2020
In 2025 a three-bedroom in a building under five years old rented for S$4.92 per square foot outside central, against S$4.02 for one over 26 years old in the core central region. In 2019 the comparison ran the other way. The age premium roughly doubled over nine years, from 1.25 times to 1.65, and in 2020 it grew large enough to overtake the thing everyone assumes decides rent.
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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