Toa Payoh led a record quarter for million-dollar HDB flats

HDB’s full second-quarter data, released on 23 July, confirms the flash reading: resale prices slipped 0.3%, the second dip in a row. It also fills in the map. A record 491 flats changed hands at $1 million or more, and Toa Payoh, Queenstown and Bukit Merah accounted for 195 of them.

The Resale Price Index came in at 202.8 for Q2 2026, a shade above the flash estimate of 202.7 published on 1 July. It follows a 0.1% dip in Q1, making this the first back-to-back quarterly decline since 2019. The index now sits about 0.4% below its 3Q2025 peak, and essentially level with where it was a year ago, the first flat year-on-year reading since end-2019.

The index has drifted about 0.4% below its 3Q2025 peak and now sits where it was a year ago. Source: HDB, 2nd Quarter 2026 Public Housing Data

For the first half of 2026, prices are down 0.4%. Compare that with gains of 2.5% in the first half of 2025 and 4.2% in the first half of 2024, and the change of gear is obvious. Wong Siew Ying, head of research and content at PropNex Realty, described the quarter as a continuation of the market’s gradual shift from strong price appreciation to price stability.

Volumes stayed thin. Buyers registered 6,396 resale applications in Q2, up 1.8% from the first quarter but 9.9% below the 7,102 flats sold a year earlier, making this the weakest second quarter since the pandemic-hit 3,426 of 2Q2020. Half-year volume of 12,681 flats is 7.4% below the same period last year.

A record 491 flats crossed the million mark

The counterpoint to the soft index is at the top of the market. Some 491 resale flats sold for $1 million or more in Q2, a new quarterly record that beats the 480 of 3Q2025. That is 19.5% more than the 411 deals in Q1 and 18.3% above the same quarter last year. Million-dollar deals made up 7.7% of all resale transactions, up from 6.5% in the first quarter, which still leaves more than nine in ten flats changing hands below that line.

Four-room flats led with 212 of those deals, followed by five-room flats at 183 and executive flats at 93. Two 3-room flats and one multi-generation flat also crossed the threshold.

Three central towns account for a large share of the quarter’s 491 million-dollar deals. Source: HDB resale transaction data, 2Q2026

Toa Payoh recorded the most at 66, with Queenstown at 65 and Bukit Merah at 64. Kallang/Whampoa (41) and Ang Mo Kio (38) followed. Bedok and Tampines, mature towns outside the central region, each saw 27, all involving larger flat types. PropNex counted 1,050 million-dollar resales in the year to 23 July, against 1,593 for the whole of 2025, so this year is on course to set a new annual high as well.

The town-level medians show the same split. The median 4-room flat went for $1.04 million in Queenstown and $1.02 million in Toa Payoh, holding above the million mark for a second straight quarter, while the Central Area’s 4-room median reached nearly $1.2 million. In Jurong West the figure was $530,000, in Yishun $545,000, in Woodlands $550,000. Same flat type, roughly half the price, depending on where you buy.

Why the wider market is cooling

Christine Sun, chief researcher and strategist at Realion Group, attributed the softening to competition from BTO launches, a weaker hiring outlook and macroeconomic uncertainty. Supply is the structural part of that story: 13,480 flats reach their five-year minimum occupation period this year, almost double last year’s count, and HDB will launch about 7,960 BTO flats in October, keeping the year’s total new supply around 24,000 units including balance flats.

Eugene Lim, key executive officer of ERA Singapore, said buyers now hold more bargaining power after several years of a sellers’ market, though he cautioned that sellers with realistically valued flats need not slash prices to find a buyer. He expects any further re-pricing to be gradual, since genuine demand keeps volumes steady.

Full-year forecasts cluster near zero. SRI expects resale prices to rise 0.5% to 2%, PropNex projects broadly stable prices with up to 1% growth, and Realion sees a range of -1% to 2%, with all three expecting roughly 25,000 to 27,000 transactions.

What this means for you

• Sellers in most towns are now negotiating in a buyer’s market. Price against the last three months of transactions in your own block and flat type, not against your town’s headline record.
• If your flat is in Toa Payoh, Queenstown or Bukit Merah and it is a larger type on a healthy lease, the record quarter shows demand at the top end has not blinked. It also means more of your neighbours are listing into it.
• Buyers gain a little room on price and a lot of room on selection: volumes rose across every flat type this quarter, and October’s BTO exercise adds another route entirely.
• Watch the MOP wave. With 13,480 flats exiting their minimum occupation period this year, competition among sellers of young flats is the force most likely to keep prices flat into 2027.