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With new launch prices now averaging $2,200+ psf, it’s unsurprising that attention has turned back toward resale condos. This is when a good number of home buyers get shocked at how much resale condo prices rose as well – we shouldn’t forget that, in the wake of Covid, ready-to-move-in units were in high demand amid the housing supply crunch. It’s high time that we take another look, and update our observations on the price gap between new and resale condos for 2024: (You might notice that for smaller units, new launch prices seemed to decrease between 2013 to 2016. This was due to 2013 being a peak year, and a slew of cooling measures that followed till today) While the price gap had already started to grow in 2018, we can see the most drastic jumps occurring in 2020 (the year of the circuit breaker) and beyond.  Contrary to what this might suggest, it was a golden time for property developers. It was in fact the opposite: prices soared because materials and manpower costs rose during Covid, and didn’t come back down afterwards (as is true of most things). The effect was so bad that .  Here’s a look at the growth of $PSF for new sales: Here’s what the growth of $PSF looks like for resale condos: On a price psf basis, resale condos actually saw higher growth in 2023 to 2024. This helped to narrow the gap with their new launch counterparts, at least in recent times. However, it’s impossible to say if the price gap will to narrow. There are a number of variables still to be considered.  One is that, when comparing between new launch and resale, we need to acknowledge that the vast majority of new launches are leasehold condos. This matters as freehold condos have a price premium. This is what the prices look like for freehold (new launch): Now, we look at the prices for freehold (resale): Here’s a look at the $PSF gap if we only focused on freehold/999-year leasehold developments: Next, let’s look at new launch leasehold prices: Now here’s what the prices look like for resale, leasehold condos: This gives us the following price gap: Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like sticking to leasehold projects will help with a smaller price gap. While the absolute prices for leasehold are lower, the price gap between new and resale is close to what you’d find in the freehold market: For now, it would seem that the only good news (for buyers) is that the price gap in ‘23 and ‘24 is not as bad as the ones we saw between 2017 to 2023.  Given that a substantial number of new condos have been built – particularly recent mega-developments like and – the supply crunch is largely over. This may also help to narrow the price gap, or at least keep it from widening even further.  That said, there’s one more thing to look at: We need to start by checking the of sales in the various regions. This shows the proportion of condo sales that each region constituted, since 2013: Note that between 2015 to 2019, only a very small number of transactions were in the CCR, hence our need to check for distortions (when you have a very high or low number of new launches appearing in a given area, it will distort the average price psf).  ( ) The number of resale transactions tends to be more stable across the various regions.  New sales: Resale: The price gaps are as follows: Now you can see why it’s important to compare on a regional basis as well. Once we’ve accounted for location, you can see a very consistent trend where the gap widens over time. Whilst the CCR has recently taken a pounding from new cooling measures, it was in fact the region with the fastest-rising gap between new and resale projects.  We have a theory by the way, on why in the CCR, old resale projects may see such a big price gap versus newer ones. That’s related to in the CCR, which by today’s standards are sometimes outmatched even by the newest mass-market condos.  Meanwhile, in the OCR and RCR, we can see that – despite meteoric rises in new launch prices after COVID-19 – the gap has started to narrow. Resale units have started to catch up with their new launch counterparts, although there’s still quite a ways to go. Overall, signs point to a general levelling off in new launch prices. Even developers probably know they’ve hit a ceiling, with $2 million+ family units being too much of a stretch for the average buyer (and almost certainly out of the question for most first-timers).  We’d also expect resale prices to further catch up for broadly similar reasons: the largest demographic (HDB upgraders) are likely to find some resale projects to be more palatable; enough that they’re more willing to overlook certain issues like age for now.  For more on the Singapore property market, and updates on the wider situation, follow us on . If you’d like to get in touch for a more in-depth consultation, you can do so .