HDB resale price growth slows further to 0.9% in Q2: flash data
[SINGAPORE] Resale prices of Housing & Development Board (HDB) flats continued to rise in the second quarter of 2025, but at a slower pace of 0.9 per cent compared with 1.6 per cent in the first quarter.
This marks the third consecutive quarter of slowdown in price growth and is the smallest quarter-on-quarter expansion since Q2 2020, flash data from HDB indicated on Tuesday (Jul 1).
It is also the first time since Q2 2020 that resale prices increased by less than 1 per cent, said Huttons Asia’s senior director of data analytics Lee Sze Teck.
Given the softer price growth, PropNex Realty’s head of research and content Wong Siew Ying reckoned it would be timely for the government to seriously consider removing the 15-month wait-out period imposed on those selling their private property to buy an HDB resale flat.
New Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat had said in May that the government was considering lifting the wait-out restriction, which was imposed in September 2022 to curb the red-hot housing demand that was driven partly by construction delays of new flats due to the pandemic.
Citing HDB caveat data, Realion Group’s chief researcher and strategist Christine Sun said that price growth was slower across most flat types.
HDB resale price growth moderates in Q2, more flats sold
More resale flats were sold in the second quarter of 2025. ST PHOTO: LIM ...
The average prices of four-room flats, for instance, crept up 1.3 per cent in Q2 – slower than the 2 per cent growth in Q1.
However, the average prices of executive flats jumped by 3.8 per cent in Q2, up from the 1.5 per cent quarterly gain in the previous quarter.
About a third or 116 units of the 414 executive flats were transacted for at least a million dollars in the recent quarter, noted Sun.
Million-dollar deals on the rise
In Q2, the number of HDB flats sold at the million-dollar mark rose by 10.3 per cent on the quarter to 384 units.
This also marks a 62.7 per cent increase from the 236 units transacted in the year-ago period, said ERA Singapore’s key executive officer Eugene Lim.
“Collectively, the first half of 2025 has seen some 756 million-dollar flat transactions, compared to 1,035 transactions seen for the whole of 2024,” he added.
Huttons Asia’s Lee noted that flats sold for S$1 million and above made up slightly more than 6 per cent of the islandwide market volume in Q2.
The average price of such flats inched up 0.7 per cent on the quarter to S$1.14 million.
He observed more demand in mature estates, with Toa Payoh seeing the highest number of million-dollar flats at 79 as more units met the five-year minimum occupation period (MOP). This was followed by Bukit Merah (55) and Queenstown (48).
In total, transaction volumes of resale flats stood at 6,981 units as at Sunday, down 5 per cent from the same period in the previous year.
The decrease was due to a lower supply of resale flats for sale, which capped activities, pointed out Lee.
However, resale volume was up 5.9 per cent on the quarter. Lee noted that activities picked up in the HDB resale market in Q2 due to seasonal factors and the absence of Build-To-Order (BTO) or Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercises.
This uptick in resale activity and prices may taper off in the second half of 2025, said Mogul.sg chief research officer Nicholas Mak, as new flat launches in the primary market draw demand away from resale units.
In July, HDB will launch about 5,500 BTO flats in Bukit Merah, Bukit Panjang, Clementi, Sembawang, Tampines, Toa Payoh and Woodlands. In October, Mount Pleasant’s maiden BTO project is expected to hit the market.
A growing pool of SBF flats, which have been completed or are close to completion, will also compete with resale flats for buyers, said Realion’s Sun.
HDB will conduct an SBF exercise in July, offering about 3,000 flats, bringing the total SBF supply this year to more than 8,500 units.
Sun added that broader external headwinds, such as heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and an ongoing global trade war, could weigh on buyer sentiment and dampen resale activity.
HDB said: “Singapore’s GDP (gross domestic product) growth for 2025 is expected to moderate from last year. Against this backdrop of slowing economic growth and increasing headwinds arising from escalating global trade conflicts, there are also early signs of moderating labour demand.”
Against this backdrop, and coupled with new flat supply and cooling measures, the pace of price growth could become more measured.
Cumulatively, HDB resale flat prices have risen by 2.5 per cent in H1 2025, slowing from the 4.2 per cent increase in H1 2024, noted PropNex’s Wong.
“We expect the price increase ahead to likely be modest amid the injection of new flat supply and cooling measures working through the market,” she added.
With only 6,974 flats expected to reach their MOP in 2025 – the lowest in 11 years – supply in the resale market remains tight and prices elevated, said ERA’s Lim.
Resale price growth to moderate
But the outlook will shift from 2026 onwards, when around 50,000 flats are projected to fulfil their MOP between 2026 and 2028.
This will expand buyer choices, especially in newer towns such as Punggol and Tengah, and help to continue stabilising prices by easing competition, said Singapore Realtors Inc’s head of research and data analytics Mohan Sandrasegeran.
Still, with the tight supply of MOP flats in 2025, analysts expect resale prices to continue rising at a moderate pace in H2.
They anticipate an overall 3 to 6 per cent growth in prices and 26,000 to 28,000 transactions for the year. This is down from the 28,986 deals and 9.7 per cent price increase recorded in 2024.
PropNex expects to see more than 1,300 million-dollar flats transacted in the entire 2025 – surpassing the record 1,035 sales in the previous year.
Source: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/property/hdb-resale-price-growth-slows-further-0-9-q2-flash-data
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