Young HDB resale flats are losing buyers to BTO launches

The newest flats in the resale market are losing their audience. Deals for flats under 10 years old fell to a six-year low last quarter, and the buyers have not disappeared: they have gone back to the BTO queue.

Transactions involving resale flats less than 10 years old dropped to 1,222 units in 2Q2026, according to research from Realion Group. That is 21.8 percent lower than a year ago and the smallest second-quarter volume in six years, since the pandemic-hit 836 units of 2Q2020.

These younger flats made up just 19.7 percent of all resale transactions in the quarter, the smallest share since 2Q2019. The slide has been steady: 28.2 percent in 2Q2023, 26.2 percent in 2Q2024, 22.9 percent in 2Q2025, and now under 20 percent. In the first half of 2026, 2,322 younger resale flats changed hands, less than half of the 5,459 units sold across the whole of 2025.

Younger flats’ share of HDB resale deals has fallen for three straight years. Source: Realion Group research, July 2026.

Price is doing the pushing

Realion’s researchers point to a simple culprit: the price gap. The average price of a resale flat under 10 years old jumped 21.2 percent in three years, from $619,970 in 2Q2023 to $751,361 in 2Q2026. Young couples who might once have paid up for a nearly-new resale flat are increasingly choosing to queue for a new one instead.

The average price of a resale flat under 10 years old has climbed 21.2 percent in three years. Source: Realion Group research, July 2026.

The June 2026 BTO exercise made that trade-off concrete. It offered 6,952 flats, with a four-room at Sembawang Brook starting from $302,000 and a four-room at Lakeview Cascadia in Bishan from $534,000, both far below the $751,000 average for a young resale flat. Realion noted that the launch likely pulled most young buyers out of the resale market, with popular projects in Bukit Merah and Bishan significantly oversubscribed.

The backdrop is a resale market that has gone from record run to gentle decline. HDB’s flash estimate puts the Resale Price Index at 202.7 for 2Q2026, down 0.3 percent after a 0.1 percent dip in 1Q2026. That is the first back-to-back quarterly decline in nearly seven years, with more flats reaching their Minimum Occupation Period (MOP, the five years an owner must live in a flat before selling) and a heavy BTO pipeline giving buyers options.

What this means for you

• If you are selling a flat under 10 years old, your buyer pool is thinner than it was even a year ago. Price against the BTO alternative your buyer is weighing, not against last year’s high, and expect longer marketing time.
• If you are buying a young resale flat, competition has eased. The under-10-year segment was the market’s hottest corner in 2021 to 2023; today you have more room to negotiate, especially on flats that have sat unsold.
• The BTO route is cheapest but slow. If your timeline allows the three to four year wait, June’s pricing showed how wide the discount to resale can be. If you need a home now, that gap is the premium you are paying for immediacy.
• Two quarters of falling prices is a cooling signal, not a crash. With MOP supply almost doubling in 2026, expect choice to keep improving for buyers through the year.