Landed Home Sales Just Hit a 4-Year High. Here's Why Upgraders Are Finally Making the Move.
The numbers are in, and they’re hard to ignore. 1,852 landed homes changed hands in 2025. That’s an 11.2% jump from the year before, and the highest transaction volume since 2021.
Q4 alone saw 491 deals, the busiest quarter since Q2 2022. Terrace houses accounted for more than half of those.
Something’s shifted. And if you’ve been sitting in your condo thinking “maybe next year,” the market is telling you that a lot of people already decided not to wait.
Why now
Three things happened at once.
SORA dropped to 1.12%. That’s a 3-year low. For a $3.5M terrace house with 75% LTV, every 0.5% in interest rate saves you roughly $1,100 a month. That’s not nothing. Cheaper money makes the jump from condo to landed genuinely more affordable, not just aspirationally.
Landed prices outpaced condos. The landed property price index grew 7.6% in 2025 after a cautious 0.9% in 2024. Meanwhile, CCR condo prices actually fell 3.2% in Q4 2025. Detached house transactions rose 15.6% year-on-year. Semi-Ds? Up 16.6%. Buyers aren’t just window shopping anymore.
The en bloc wave is creating liquidity. With en bloc fever returning and projects like Serenity Park and Braddell View in play, a chunk of condo owners are suddenly cashed up. Some of that money is flowing straight into landed.
The upgrader math
Let’s say you’re in a 3-bedroom condo in the OCR worth $1.8M. You bought it for $1.3M five years ago. That’s $500K in paper gains.
A freehold terrace in District 19 or D28 starts around $3.5M to $5M. A leasehold one in somewhere like Sengkang or Hougang, maybe $2.5M to $3.5M.
With your condo sale proceeds, CPF, and a mortgage at current rates, the gap is smaller than you think. Especially if you’re a Singaporean buying your second property. Yes, you’ll pay 20% ABSD upfront on the new place, but you get it refunded if you sell the condo within 6 months. That’s the standard buy-first-sell-later upgrade path.
The real cost isn’t the purchase price. It’s the renovation. Landed homes eat cash. Budget $300K to $500K for a proper renovation on an older terrace. $600K+ if you’re doing a full rebuild. This is where I see a lot of upgraders get caught off guard.
Where the action is
Not all landed enclaves are created equal. Here’s what moved in 2025:
Districts 19 and 20 (Serangoon Gardens, Thomson) continued to dominate terrace transactions. Mature estate, good schools, established neighbourhood character. These sell themselves.
District 15 (Katong, Joo Chiat) is seeing renewed interest for freehold terraces, especially the conservation shophouse-adjacent ones. Character and tenure in one package.
District 26 (Lentor, Mandai) is the emerging play. Villa Natura at Tung Po Avenue is doing freehold semi-Ds and a detached villa from $7M. In a precinct that’s been all condos (Lentor Mansion, Lentor Hills Residences, Lentoria), a landed offering stands out.
Freehold vs leasehold: the landed version
This debate matters more for landed than condos.
Freehold landed carries a 10-20% premium over leasehold. But the holding power is different. You’re not dealing with en bloc risk or MCST politics. The land is yours.
Leasehold landed (especially 99-year) can still make sense if you’re buying for a 15 to 20 year horizon and the location is strong. But financing gets tricky once the remaining lease drops below 60 years. Banks tighten, buyers thin out, and your exit gets harder.
For a family home you plan to hold long-term, freehold is almost always the sharper play. The premium you pay upfront often looks cheap 20 years later.
What I’d actually do
If I were a condo owner with $500K+ in equity, SORA at 1.12%, and a growing family, I’d be looking hard at landed right now.
Not because prices are going to moon. The 5-7% growth forecast for 2026 is healthy but not euphoric. I’d do it because landed supply is structurally constrained. Singapore isn’t making more land. The GLS programme is almost entirely focused on condos and ECs. New landed supply is basically whatever comes from en bloc redevelopments and the occasional boutique project.
That scarcity compounds over time. It’s the one segment where you genuinely can’t just “wait for the next launch.”
But I’d also be honest about what I can afford. The carrying cost on a landed home is real: property tax, maintenance, the inevitable roof leak, the garden that needs constant attention. It’s not a condo where you pay MCST and forget about it.
The risk nobody talks about
Interest rates are low now. They won’t stay low forever.
If you’re stretching to a $4M terrace on a floating rate at 1.7%, stress-test yourself at 3.5%. Can you handle $14,000 a month in mortgage payments? If that number makes you sweat, you’re buying too much house.
The best landed purchases I’ve seen are from people who bought within 60-70% of their maximum borrowing capacity. They sleep well. They renovate without panic. And they never have to sell at the wrong time.
1,852 transactions in 2025 tells you the market is real. Just make sure you’re buying for the right reasons, not because everyone else is.
