Singapore · 73,000 landed homes · A fixed-supply asset
Everything below is one thing: how to price a landed home before you make an offer. Which district, which enclave, which category, what the plot itself is worth — and what it will cost you to exit.
Two plots can share a price and a size, and still be worth $1M apart. The difference is drawn on the plan, not in the listing.
Lot 01 — The supply picture
Singapore has roughly 1.64 million homes. About 73,000 of them sit on their own land. The stock has been flat since 2018 — every increase you see comes from subdividing land that already exists, not from new land.
74% of stock
19% of stock
2% of stock
4% of stock — and flat
Over the same fifteen years, condo supply grew 96% and prices grew 64%. When supply cannot answer demand, price has to. That is the entire case for land as the hardest residential asset in Singapore — and the reason a landed owner does not fear the next launch cycle.
In a typical OCR landed district the split runs roughly 8 terrace homes for every 4 semi-detached and 1 detached. Terrace is where volume, comparables and bank valuations live — which is exactly why it is the easiest type to sell.
| Type in one district | Homes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Terrace | 1,688 | 63% |
| Semi-detached | 800 | 30% |
| Detached | 210 | 7% |
Current inventory ÷ monthly sales rate. A high number means a slow exit. You are not only buying a home, you are buying your own future queue.
Rule: buy the property with the future ease of exit. Trapped capital misses the next opportunity.
New launch and resale condo quantums now cluster toward $3.5M. Every buyer who clears that ceiling starts shopping land. When the base layer rises, the layer above it has to move — landed pricing is pushed from underneath, not pulled from above.
Lot 02 — Where the 73,356 actually are
This is the whole landed stock of Singapore, district by district. It tells you where comparables exist, where transaction volume is deep enough to support a valuation, and where you would be one of very few houses of your type.
| District | Detached | Semi-D | Terrace | Total |
|---|
Source: REALIS, retrieved May 2023. Pure landed only — Good Class Bungalows sit inside the Detached count; cluster and strata-titled homes are excluded. Figures move slowly; treat as a structural picture rather than a live count.
D19, D15, D16 and D10 together hold roughly 34,000 of the 73,356 landed homes. If you are buying outside these, expect thinner comparables and a slower valuation trail.
40,276 terrace, 22,348 semi-detached, 10,732 detached. Detached is under 15% of the stock — which is exactly why detached exit audiences are thin and price-sensitive.
The Outside Central Region holds the bulk of landed homes. CCR landed is scarce and priced accordingly — D10 and D11 alone account for most of the central detached stock.
Lot 03 — 4 & 5 bedders versus land
A buyer at $4M is not choosing between two products. They are standing on a ladder with six rungs, and the rungs are moving. The question is never "can I afford landed" — it is "how much more than the rung below me does landed actually cost right now."
Tap a year to watch the rungs move.
What matters is the dollar gap between your rung and the next one. When that gap shrinks to 0–20%, the upper rung is temporarily cheap and demand jumps to it.
In 2024 the step from a TOP condo to strata landed was effectively nil. That is what a closed gap looks like — and it is why strata landed absorbed so quickly.
Entry-level inter terrace has moved from $2.5M in 2020 to the $4.5M band. Low rates pull the base up. Once the base moves, every rung above it resets.
Lot 04 — The disparity effect
Each type moves faster than the types above and below it, then hands the baton on. Disparity is not a discount — it is a timing signal. You are looking for the moment a whole tier is temporarily mispriced against the tier next to it.
When a popular district runs, buyers get priced out and spill into the neighbouring district with the same commute and a weaker name. The neighbour then catches up.
As inter terrace rises, the gap to semi-detached narrows and buyers step up. Below it, priced-out buyers fall back to strata landed and big condos.
Same street, same size, four different prices — depending only on the age and condition of what is standing on the land. This is the most exploitable gap of the three.
Select a pair to see the median PSF gap by type. A gap only becomes investible when it buys you a whole category or a whole type upgrade.
If the same money buys a terrace in the big brother or a semi-detached in the small brother, cross. You are trading a name for a whole type. If the gap only buys you a slightly newer house, don't — pay for the stronger district instead.
Volume climbs in the cheaper district, low quantum stock gets absorbed, a new price point is set. This is when to buy the small brother.
Once the small brother has caught up, the reason to be there disappears. The stronger district is now the better risk-adjusted buy.
Paying big-brother money in a small-brother district is the single most common landed mistake. You inherit the weaker exit audience with none of the discount.
Lot 05 — Categories 1 to 4
Category is the shared language for condition. Once you can say "that's a Cat 2 asking Cat 3 money," pricing stops being a feeling. Tap a category to see what it costs in money and in months.
The only question worth asking before you renovate, do an A&A, or rebuild: at the end of all that time and cost, what category am I holding, and what is that category selling for today?
Move the sliders. The bar shows your all-in cost against what the market is already asking for the finished product.
Lot 06 — The four horses
Two things decide which one you are holding. What the land is — the inherent characteristics you can never change. And what you did to it — the value-add enhancements you can pay for. Two axes, four outcomes, and only one of them prices at the top of the street.
Orientation, plot shape, road width, what faces you, reserves under the ground, the neighbours' side walls.
Structure, layout, ceiling volume, finishes, lift, solar, EV charging, retaining works.
A poorer horse can still be a correct buy — but only at a price that already accounts for the discount you will have to give the next buyer. Enhancement lifts the ceiling; it does not move the plot.
Lot 07 — Score the plot
This is a full scoring pass over a landed property — tenure, land, structure, street and plans. Positive points for what widens your exit audience, negative points for what permanently narrows it. Work through it with the listing open in another tab.
Facing a park · single loading front or back · good plot shape · good road width · no road line restriction · ample parking in front of the gate · near transport but not noisy · 3.5-storey enclave · elevated views · serene and low traffic · good neighbours · pure landed zoning · within 1km of a good school · not back-to-back facing
Facing a cross or T-junction · beside a substation · beside an expressway · road line reserve · drainage or sewer line · odd plot shape · west-facing frontage · hard to park outside · narrow road · sloping terrain · near eateries · near a petrol station · multiple split levels · side faces multiple landed homes · fronting HDB blocks · close to industry · near a place of worship · track noise
Road line reserve, drainage reserve, sewer line, manholes, split levels and sloping terrain do not appear in photographs — and each one carries a heavy negative in the score above because each one costs real money to work around.
Buy the plans before you exercise the option. A road line reserve discovered after the option fee is paid is a forfeited option fee.
Lot 08 — What DNA costs, in dollars and in months
A seller wants the highest price in the shortest time. These are real outcomes, stripped of addresses — read them as the price of each characteristic.
Identical houses a few doors down transacted higher. The characteristic was never fixable, so the discount was permanent.
Attractive PSF, but the quantum let buyers shop a whole tier up — and the side of the house faced five or six terraces.
5,705 sqft. Rebuilding meant protecting the drainage line and submitting to PUB. It eventually sold below valuation.
Not back-to-back facing. Walking distance to the MRT, within 1km of two schools. Nothing renovated at all.
Desirable enclave, limited supply, land banked. The buyer did nothing to the house and let the land work.
Unrenovated, correctly priced, clean plot. Five offers came in because the exit audience was wide.
If nobody on a street has sold for years, there is no benchmark PSF, no fresh valuation, and nothing to anchor your future buyer's bank. Owners who are comfortable and never move create a quiet street with quiet prices.
What breaks it: a catalyst transaction. Someone rebuilds, someone sets a record, valuations reset for the whole street.
The question to ask yourself: do you want to be the catalyst, or arrive after someone else has been? Construction next door is good news, not noise.
Lot 09 — Entry quantum and dilemma zones
Certain price points sit cleanly inside one product. Others sit in a dilemma zone, where you are the weakest bidder in the tier above and the most overpriced in the tier below. Move the slider to see where your number lands.
Your realistic choices are resale condo, new launch, a large TOP unit, or strata landed. Nothing wrong with any of them — but do not stretch into a compromised plot just to say "landed".
This is where 99-year landed and strata landed compete with freehold entry terraces. If you are at $4M, the honest conversation is about pledging or showing funds to reach the freehold band — not about lowering the standard of the plot.
For investing purposes, the best return in landed has belonged to freehold and 999-year tenure. Above this line you should not be trading tenure away for size.
Buy at $8M and you need to sell at $10M in four years. A $10M buyer has the whole big-brother district open to them and will be extremely selective. The quantum, not the house, is what limits your exit audience.
The exception: if you have no intention of selling, buy the detached and enjoy it. This is an exit-audience rule, not a lifestyle rule.
The workaround: at big quantum, buy land that is sub-dividable. You then have two future buyer audiences — retail buyers and developers — instead of one.
Lot 10 — Land sizes and the mistakes they hide
Minimum plot sizes qualify a house for a label. They do not make it feel like one. Take the width, subtract the setbacks, and see what internal space is actually left.
A corner terrace often needs a plot similar in size to a semi-detached, but its status is fundamentally different. When your future buyer stands in front of it with a semi-detached listed at the same price, you lose. Buy a corner only at a clear discount; otherwise step up a tier.
Lot 11 — The built-up framework
Two houses on the same land at the same price are not the same buy. The one with more built-up area shows a lower built-up PSF, which is the number your future buyer compares against a brand-new house. It also converts every dollar of market movement into a bigger dollar gain.
What you paid per square foot of the thing that cannot be replaced.
The number a buyer compares against a brand-new house.
A $2.5M condo at 1,200 sqft gains about $120k on a $100 psf move. A landed home with 4,000 sqft of built-up gains about $400k on the same move. In a rising market, moving to the stronger asset earlier beats waiting for the weaker one to catch up — because the target is running away faster than your current home is chasing it.
Lot 12 — Entry pricing worksheet
Asking price tells you almost nothing on its own. What matters is where each option lands once the works are done — total investment, total land PSF, total built-up PSF, and what category you are holding at the end. Fill in what you know; the rest computes.
| Option A | Option B | Option C |
|---|
It is the number your future buyer will compare against a brand-new house on the same street. Lower is stronger, provided the end category is genuinely comparable.
Structure depreciates, land does not. If two options land at similar built-up PSF, the one with the lower land PSF is holding more of the thing that cannot be replaced.
Spending $700k to move from Cat 2 to Cat 3 is only worth it if a finished Cat 3 costs more than that. If you are not moving category, you are decorating, not investing.
Rough guides only. Construction costs vary with soil condition, piling, reserves and finish level — get a builder's figure on the actual plot before you rely on any number here.
Lot 13 — The buyer's decision matrix
Order matters because each step narrows the next. Choosing a house before choosing an enclave is how people end up defending a bad plot with good renovation.
Big brother or small brother, and which season you are in. Check the gap is still open before you commit to the cheaper name.
Pure landed zoning or mixed. Storey height allowance. Traffic, ingress and egress. Transaction volume — is this a slow-growth street?
Past transactions on the same street, then the wider enclave. Bank valuation as the floor, not the target. Category-adjust every comparable.
Score the DNA. Price the enhancements. Only now does an offer number exist — and it is a range, not a figure.
Requisition road line, drainage and sewer plans before offering. A road line reserve discovered after the option fee is paid is a forfeited option fee.
Walk the house with a builder or architect and get a rough figure before you negotiate. Some architects will not take on an A&A at all — better to know now.
Run the category path. If the A&A route lands within $50k of an existing better house, buy the better house. If a rebuild saves $400k against a developer unit, decide whether 18 months of your time is worth $400k.
Do it when you are ready, not when you feel the market is ready. The stronger asset moves in bigger dollars, so waiting for your current home to gain $200k while the target gains $500k puts you further away, not closer.
Do the opposite. Let your stronger asset run first, then sell into strength before you move down. Selling a strong asset early to buy a weak one is the most expensive kind of patience.
Lot 14 — Market data
Supply, transaction volume and median PSF for every landed district, updated from source data. These panels are wired to load live figures.
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