Jay Sadarangani
About 1 in 5 private home resale deals in Singapore's prime region were made at a loss in the third quarter of 2026, according to BT Property (1 November 2026). Islandwide, the share was 4.6%, the highest in four years. A loss-making resale means what it sounds like: the owner sold the property for less than they paid for it. It is an easy number to grasp, which is why it travels so far, and people read it as a verdict on whether a prime address protects your money.
Our position is that these losses are not a surprise. They sit in places that have been weak resale performers for a long time: OUE Twin Peaks, the central business district addresses of Marina One and V on Shenton, and Cape Royale in Sentosa Cove. A prime postcode has never been the same thing as a resilient resale price. Before you treat the prime-region figure as a reason to stay away from central property, check the resale record of the specific development you are looking at.
Usually, the central districts are where people assume their money is safest. In URA's classification, the prime region is the Core Central Region: broadly the central districts, the downtown core and Sentosa. The land is limited, the location is central, and the prices per square foot (psf, the price of the property divided by its floor area) are the highest in the country. The reasoning is simple enough: if anything holds its value, it should be that.
So when the prime region shows a loss rate several times the islandwide 4.6%, it reads as a warning about the whole segment. If prime property were simply tracking the wider market, you would expect its share of loss-making deals to sit much closer to the islandwide figure.
However, the loss-making deals in the prime region are not scattered across every central condominium. They concentrate in a handful of projects that have been soft on resale for years.
OUE Twin Peaks has been a poor resale performer for a long time, despite a location most buyers would call excellent. Marina One and V on Shenton are both central business district addresses. Cape Royale sits in Sentosa Cove, where resale interest has been subdued.
If you already follow the resale market, a loss at any of those projects is not news.
URA publishes private residential transaction data project by project, so you can check any of these names against it yourself.
How does a central address end up selling for less than it cost? The source doesn't give a reason. What follows is our own explanation, not a finding from the data.
These projects sit in two parts of Singapore where the pool of resale buyers behaves differently from the suburbs. Central business district units tend to be bought as investments or second homes rather than by families looking for schools and space. Sentosa Cove is a small market, heavily dependent on foreign buyers.
A smaller pool of buyers means fewer people bidding when you want to sell. Pair that with a high entry price, and the resale price has to clear a high bar before the seller sees anything at all.
The same quarter had an opposite end. Executive condominiums posted the biggest percentage gains among resale transactions (BT Property, 1 November 2026). An executive condominium, or EC, is a part-subsidised home built by a private developer, which becomes fully private property 15 years after completion for ECs launched from 8 May 2026 onwards, or ten years for those launched earlier.
The source does not say why ECs gained. What the quarter shows is a shape: the segment with the lowest entry prices did best, and the segment with the highest entry prices produced the losses. That is a pattern in one quarter, not a proven cause.
Private properties, Q3 2026: share of resale transactions made at a loss. Captured on 1 November 2026.
| Segment | Share made at a loss |
|---|---|
| Islandwide | 4.6% |
| Prime region (Core Central Region) | About 1 in 5 |
Figures as reported by BT Property on 1 November 2026. Covers private properties, not HDB flats. The islandwide share is reported as 4.6%. The prime-region share is reported only as about 1 in 5, which is why the two rows differ in precision. These figures also count how many deals lost money, not how much was lost on each.
Two things stand out.
First, the prime-region share is several times the islandwide one.
Second, 4.6% islandwide is the highest in four years, and it still means the large majority of resale deals in the quarter were not loss-making. Both readings are true at once. The first is the one that makes the headlines.
Look up the project, not just the district. URA publishes past transactions for individual private developments. A project can sit in a strong district and still have a weak resale record, and the district average will not tell you that.
Compare the price you are being asked to pay with what units in that same project have actually resold for. On our reading, the losses in this quarter came from a high entry price meeting a thin pool of buyers later on.
Don't read 4.6% as a reason to avoid prime-region property. It is the highest share in four years, and it is still a minority of deals.
How much any of this matters to you depends on how long you plan to hold. A short holding period gives the market less time to grow into a high entry price. If you expect to sell within a few years, the resale record of your specific development matters far more than the district it sits in.
This applies to private property. HDB flats are a different market with different rules, and HDB loans follow the CPF rate (the interest rate paid on your CPF Ordinary Account savings) rather than SORA, the benchmark most private floating-rate home loans move with.
Thomson Reserve sold 1,143 units (90%) over its launch weekend at an average of $2,900 psf, with all 3- and 4-bedroom units sold out and only 123 two-bedders and two five-bedroom suites remaining from $1.635M. This single-project result shows larger units sold fastest and most buyers were Singaporeans purchasing to live in or invest, but it does not prove broader market trends, underscoring the need to secure financing and loan eligibility before any launch weekend.
Stanley Tan·2 Nov 2026
Raising the BTO income ceiling to $16,000 widened the pool of eligible applicants for November's launch without adding more flats, so the ballot is expected to be more competitive than in past exercises. Applicants should expect a lower chance of securing a flat than the historical 85% to 90% success rate within two to three tries, consider resale as an alternative, and separately check their income against HDB's concessionary loan ceiling, which is distinct from the BTO eligibility ceiling and determines whether they get the fixed 2.6% HDB rate or a market-linked bank loan.
Sarah Chen·23 Oct 2026© 2026 Cashew. All rights reserved.
