Private home prices rose at gentler pace of 3.3% in 2025 even as new home sales hit 4-year high

SINGAPORE – The growth in private residential property prices eased in 2025, even as new home sales reached a four-year high, which analysts said pointed to stabilising prices rather than weakening demand.

The overall private residential price index rose at a slower pace of 0.6 per cent in the last three months of 2025, down from a 0.9 per cent increase from July to September, according to full-year data released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Jan 23.

For the full year, price growth slowed to 3.3 per cent in 2025 from 3.9 per cent in 2024, marking the slowest pace of annual growth since 2020, as the market adjusted to lower interest rates amid a higher supply of new homes.

The performance differed across segments. Prices of landed homes led with 3.4 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2025, while non-landed home prices fell by 0.2 per cent. For the full year, prices of landed homes rose 7.6 per cent, while those of non-landed homes rose by 2.3 per cent.

Within the non-landed segment, prices in the prime district fell by 3.5 per cent in the fourth quarter, compared with the 1.7 per cent increase in the third quarter. In the city fringe, prices rose by 0.7 per cent, and 1 per cent in the suburbs.

In the rental market, URA said the overall private residential rental index fell by 0.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2025, the first quarterly fall since the second quarter of 2024. For the full year, rents rose 1.9 per cent, reversing a 1.9 per cent decline in 2024.

Ms Christine Sun, chief researcher and strategist of Realion (OrangeTee & ETC) Group, noted that the overall occupancy rate remained healthy at 94 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2025.

“Moving forward, landlords will likely face stiffer competition for tenants as more private homes will be completed this year,” she said.

“They may also face more competition from newer HDB flats as the public housing stock is poised to increase substantially.”

Sales activity eased in the fourth quarter but was higher for the year. Developers sold 2,940 private residential units, excluding executive condominiums, from October to December 2025, down from 3,288 units from July to September. For the whole of 2025, developers sold 10,815 units, the highest level since 2021, up from 6,467 units in 2024.

Huttons Asia chief executive Mark Yip noted that the three best-selling projects by units sold in the last three months of 2025 were Skye at Holland, Zyon Grand and Penrith.

Skye at Holland, a 666-unit project in the core central region, was nearly sold out on the first day of its launch, at a median price of $2,948 per sq foot. Zyon Grand sold 610 out of 706 units in the quarter, and Penrith moved 448 of 462 units.

“Many of the project launches in 2025 were well-located and attractively priced against resale private homes and resale HDB flats in the vicinity, hence they drew buyers. The lower interest rates gave sales a further push,” said Mr Yip.

Developers also launched 2,632 uncompleted private residential units in the fourth quarter, compared with 4,191 units in the third quarter. For the full year, launches rose to 11,482 units, up from 6,647 units in 2024.

Resale transactions eased in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 3,529 units, from 3,881 units in the third quarter, accounting for 52.7 per cent of all sales.

In the same period, sub-sales dipped slightly to 230 units from 235 units, making up 3.4 per cent of total transactions. A sub-sale occurs when a condominium unit bought directly from a developer is sold to another buyer before the project is completed.

For the full year, there were 14,622 resale transactions and 1,055 sub-sale transactions. These figures are close to 2024’s 14,053 resale transactions and 1,428 sub-sale transactions.

PropNex chief executive Kelvin Fong said: “Falling sub-sales – commonly seen as a proxy for property speculation – may indicate that buying activity is increasingly driven by owner-occupiers and purchasers who take a longer-term view, which will be positive for market stability. Fewer sub-sales could also mean that buyers have stronger financial holding power, or face less financing stress due to high interest rates.”

He added that market stability and sales momentum from 2025 could carry into 2026, supported by lower borrowing costs that are helping to anchor buyer confidence and improve affordability.

As at Jan 23, 2026, the three-month compounded Singapore Overnight Rate Average, which banks use to price home loan packages, stood at around 1.14 per cent, the lowest since July 2022, Mr Fong noted.

Some two-year fixed-rate home loan packages are now being offered at around 1.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent per annum, significantly lower than more than 4 per cent per annum at the end of 2022, easing debt burdens for home buyers, he said.

A total of 2,018 private homes, including executive condos, were completed in the last three months of 2025, bringing total completions in 2025 to 7,996 units.

URA said a significant pipeline of 57,000 private residential units, including executive condos, is expected to be completed in the next few years.