You might have heard property agents say, “buy new launch easier to make money. Resale hard for price to go up.”
At times like this, it’s hard to check if that’s true. The spanking new showflat, the life you picture yourself living in it and the crowd around you all feed the FOMO, and make you feel you’re making the right choice.
So this piece is to help you see what the data says, so you can make a more informed decision.
How We Tested It
We took every condo and apartment project launched between 2005 and 2021 that sold at least 20 units in its first year, using URA’s caveat records. We left out ECs, which have their own eligibility rules and minimum occupation period.
For each launch, we found the older condos within 1km, at least three years older, that changed hands in the year it launched. 1km is the distance most buyers already think in, from the primary school rule, and it keeps the comparison to the same neighbourhood. A typical launch had eight older condos to compare against. We compared what the new launch buyer paid per square foot with what those neighbours sold for that same year. That gap is the launch premium.
Then we priced everything today, using resales since January 2025. 412 launches passed every filter, with a median of 14 years since launch.
What We Found
Nearly nine in ten new launches rose less than the older condos next door. 366 of the 412 lagged. In other words, if you buy a new launch at a premium, your odds of making more than the older condos nearby are slim.
The typical launch rose 33%. Its neighbours rose 57% over the same years. That works out to about 2.3% a year against 3.7%, a gap of 1.4 points a year.
The Business Times found much the same. In October, it featured an independent study of 166,970 private home purchases that were later resold, between 1995 and 2026. Homes bought new made a median 2.7% a year on price alone. Homes bought on the resale market made 3.7%, a gap of about one point a year.
The early years don’t rescue it either. Launches from 2018 to 2021, owned for five to eight years so far, lagged their neighbours 89% of the time. They rose a median 14%. The older condos around them rose 33%.
Thirty-four launches, or 8%, are worth less today than their buyers paid. Thirty of them are in the prime districts.
The Scotts Tower is the starkest. It launched in 2011 at a median S$3,313 per square foot, 61% above the older condos around it. Resales since January 2025 have gone for a median S$2,057, 38% below launch. That is about what those older condos cost when it launched, S$2,052. They now sell for S$2,305.
Prices are only half the story. The other half is how much more you paid to begin with.
Pay less than 10% more than the condo next door and you kept pace with it, or did slightly better. Pay 30% more and you almost always fell behind.
Two projects 100m apart at Lakeside show it. Caspian launched in 2009 at 8% above the older condos around it and has since risen 159%, ahead of their 115%. The Lakefront Residences launched a year later at 62% above its neighbours. It has risen 63%. Its neighbours rose 85%.
This was not one bad era. In 15 of the 17 launch years from 2005 to 2021, the half of launches with the bigger premium lagged by more. The result held when we compared freehold only with freehold and leasehold with leasehold, when we widened the radius to 1.5km or 2km, and when we counted only neighbours at least five years older.
A Deeper Look at 35 Well-Known Launches
Here are the biggest launches since 2005 that came in at 30% or more above their neighbours, by units sold in their first year, plus four other well-known names.
The numbers behind each one are below.
| Project (launched) | Launch S$psf | Latest S$psf | Neighbours at launch | Neighbours latest | Premium | Since launch | Neighbours since |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Calrose (2005) | 592 | 1,997 | 371 | 1,317 | 60% | +237% | +255% |
| The Sea View (2005) | 767 | 2,762 | 552 | 2,089 | 39% | +260% | +279% |
| Botannia (2007) | 761 | 1,791 | 572 | 1,378 | 33% | +135% | +141% |
| Soleil @ Sinaran (2007) | 1,408 | 2,209 | 1,040 | 1,965 | 35% | +57% | +89% |
| Hundred Trees (2009) | 941 | 1,858 | 719 | 1,694 | 31% | +97% | +136% |
| Optima @ Tanah Merah (2009) | 832 | 1,538 | 560 | 1,164 | 49% | +85% | +108% |
| Spottiswoode Residences (2010) | 1,863 | 2,288 | 1,270 | 1,776 | 47% | +23% | +40% |
| The Lakefront Residences (2010) | 1,072 | 1,750 | 663 | 1,224 | 62% | +63% | +85% |
| The Scala (2010) | 1,168 | 1,961 | 867 | 1,658 | 35% | +68% | +91% |
| Waterbank at Dakota (2010) | 1,171 | 2,119 | 886 | 1,669 | 32% | +81% | +88% |
| The Scotts Tower (2011) | 3,313 | 2,057 | 2,052 | 2,305 | 61% | −38% | +12% |
| Eco (2012) | 1,313 | 1,567 | 974 | 1,401 | 35% | +19% | +44% |
| Hillsta (2012) | 1,078 | 1,370 | 791 | 1,187 | 36% | +27% | +50% |
| Seahill (2012) | 1,402 | 1,610 | 1,058 | 1,477 | 33% | +15% | +40% |
| The Hillier (2012) | 1,326 | 1,554 | 964 | 1,665 | 38% | +17% | +73% |
| Corals at Keppel Bay (2013) | 2,144 | 2,065 | 1,582 | 1,772 | 35% | −4% | +12% |
| Duo Residences (2013) | 1,993 | 2,250 | 1,404 | 1,629 | 42% | +13% | +16% |
| Urban Vista (2013) | 1,503 | 1,611 | 952 | 1,182 | 58% | +7% | +24% |
| Lakeville (2014) | 1,318 | 1,823 | 915 | 1,225 | 44% | +38% | +34% |
| Sims Urban Oasis (2015) | 1,380 | 1,918 | 945 | 1,463 | 46% | +39% | +55% |
| Forest Woods (2016) | 1,410 | 2,052 | 1,026 | 1,616 | 37% | +46% | +57% |
| Lake Grande (2016) | 1,358 | 1,895 | 945 | 1,399 | 44% | +40% | +48% |
| Queens Peak (2016) | 1,631 | 2,221 | 1,246 | 1,838 | 31% | +36% | +47% |
| Grandeur Park Residences (2017) | 1,401 | 2,015 | 862 | 1,236 | 63% | +44% | +43% |
| Seaside Residences (2017) | 1,719 | 2,363 | 892 | 1,387 | 93% | +37% | +55% |
| The Clement Canopy (2017) | 1,365 | 1,965 | 1,023 | 1,414 | 33% | +44% | +38% |
| Jadescape (2018) | 1,669 | 2,296 | 1,135 | 1,596 | 47% | +38% | +41% |
| Park Colonial (2018) | 1,756 | 2,301 | 1,350 | 1,793 | 30% | +31% | +33% |
| The Tapestry (2018) | 1,406 | 1,723 | 1,023 | 1,500 | 37% | +23% | +47% |
| The Woodleigh Residences (2018) | 2,011 | 2,340 | 1,350 | 1,793 | 49% | +16% | +33% |
| Wallich Residence (2018) | 3,303 | 3,226 | 1,917 | 2,008 | 72% | −2% | +5% |
| Treasure at Tampines (2019) | 1,340 | 1,783 | 900 | 1,223 | 49% | +33% | +36% |
| Forett@Bukit Timah (2020) | 1,937 | 2,320 | 1,174 | 1,633 | 65% | +20% | +39% |
| The M (2020) | 2,450 | 2,508 | 1,610 | 1,936 | 52% | +2% | +20% |
| The Reef at King’s Dock (2021) | 2,276 | 2,462 | 1,735 | 1,978 | 31% | +8% | +14% |
Launch S$psf is the median new sale price per square foot in the launch year. Latest is the median resale since January 2025. Neighbours are the older condos within 1km, priced as a group in the launch year and since. The three in bold beat their neighbours. A launch that sold mostly small units shows a higher S$psf, which is part of its premium.
32 of the 35 rose less than the older condos next door. Three beat them, Lakeville, The Clement Canopy and, by less than a point, Grandeur Park Residences.
Why Most New Launches Lag Their Older Neighbours
A new launch charges for being new. New fittings, new facilities, the developer’s margin and the showflat all go into the price. Those are real, but they wear off. Ten years later, your condo is the older one down the road, and the next launch is charging a premium over you.
The neighbour you passed on had already lost its newness when you compared. Its price had less left to give up.
Unit mix plays a part too. New launches sell more one- and two-bedroom units than the older condos around them, and small units cost more per square foot. So part of any launch premium is the unit mix rather than the building.
New Launch Premiums Have Been Widening
Ohmyhome, a property agency, put new launches at about S$1,300 per square foot in 2013 against about S$1,200 for resales, a gap of about 8%. By 2024 it had new launches near S$2,500 and resales just over S$1,600, a gap of over 50%.
URA’s own figures show the same. Between 2011 and 2017, new launches cost 12% to 20% more per square foot than resales. Since 2022, they have cost 42% to 55% more.
Don’t read this chart as new launches making more money. It shows the opposite. It compares what buyers paid to get in, new against resale, year by year. It says nothing about what anyone made when they sold. What it does show is the premium rising.
So today’s launches, at these premiums, carry more risk than before.
Why Has the Gap Been Widening?
Mostly because new homes cost more to build.
Land is the biggest part. In 2015 and 2016, developers paid a median of about S$700 per square foot of allowed floor area for state land. From 2017 to 2024 they paid S$1,000 to S$1,200, apart from a dip in 2020. By our match of state land sales to the condos later built on them, land now makes up close to half of a new launch’s price.
Building costs rose too. BCA’s tender price index, which tracks what it costs to put up a building, was about a third higher in 2024 than in 2020, with most of the rise in 2021 and 2022.
An older condo’s price carries none of that. It is set by what buyers will pay for a 15-year-old home, not by what it would cost to build one today.
Smaller units don’t explain the widening, though. New launches since 2022 have had a median unit of 70 to 84 square metres, bigger than the 64 to 74 of 2014 to 2019, when the gap was narrower.
And it isn’t easing. State land sold in 2025 and 2026 has gone for a median S$1,330 to S$1,473 per square foot of floor area, so the launches built on it will start from a higher cost again.
When Buying New Makes Sense
None of this makes new launches bad buys. There are good reasons to pay for new.
You want a brand-new home to live in, with fresh fittings and nothing to renovate. You don’t need a home for three or four years and can wait for it to be built. You would rather pay in stages as it goes up, with smaller loan payments in the early years. You want first pick of unit, stack and floor. You want a longer lease than the older condo next door has left.
Those are all real reasons to buy new. A better chance of making money than the resale next door is not one of them.
What Our Test Leaves Out
These are price changes only. They leave out rent, stamp duty, agent fees, maintenance and the interest on your loan.
One of those helps new launch buyers. You pay in stages as the building goes up, so you pay less interest in the early years than a resale buyer, who takes the full loan from day one. It narrows the gap, by an amount that depends on your loan.
But the resale buyer gets something back for that. They can move in or rent it out straight away, while the new launch buyer waits three or four years for the keys. At the typical condo rent of about 3.3% of the price a year, three years of rent comes to about a tenth of what you paid, before costs. Neither our figures nor BT’s include either side.
BT’s study found one exception. Homes bought new between 2015 and 2019 did slightly better than homes bought on the resale market in those years, 4.0% a year against 3.9%. In our test, the launches from those years still mostly lagged the older condos next door, but there are fewer of them, so we would not lean on that.
So, New Launch or Resale?
We think the condo next door has been the better investment most of the time, and the launch premium tells you when. The data shows a premium of 10% or less has been fair. Above that, launches mostly fell behind, and above 30%, almost always.
We already know how this works with everything else we buy new. A new car loses the most value in its first few years. A new iPhone fetches far less once it is out of the box. Nobody buys either expecting it to beat a used one as an investment. A new condo works the same way. It just hides it better, because property prices have trended upwards.
If you are buying partly as an investment, look up what the older condos within 1km sold for in the past year. If the launch costs less than 10% more per square foot, history says you are paying a fair price for newness. Above 30%, you are paying for something that has almost always worn off.
