The Cost of Waiting Report

What you get

Sixteen years of prices, one honest question: what has waiting cost?

A short PDF, sent to your WhatsApp. No forecasts. Just what the record says happened to the people who waited, and the four checks I run before I tell a client to move or to hold.

Year-by-year private and HDB index, 2010 to 2026, with the three down years marked
What a wait from each year since 2013 has cost on a S$1.5M purchase
The four move-or-hold checks, with a worksheet you can fill in for your own situation

Is this you?

You are not waiting because you can't buy. You are waiting because it feels safer.

Prices are at a record. Surely they have to come down before I buy?
I missed 2021. I am not going to be the one who buys at the top this time.
The HDB index just fell two quarters in a row. Is my flat about to lose value while I wait?
If I had bought when I first looked, in 2019 or 2022, what would that unit be worth today?

Every one of those is a fair question. What follows is the record, so you can answer them with figures instead of a feeling.

The record · URA and HDB price indices

Sixteen years. Three down years. One 10% fall, then a 60% climb.

The URA private residential price index is the official measure, built from every caveat lodged. Read down the column and the shape is obvious: prices fell for three years after the 2013 cooling measures, took until 2019 to get back to the 2013 peak, and have not had a down year since.

13up years, 2010 to 2025

3down years: 2014, 2015, 2016

−10.4%total fall, Q4 2013 to Q4 2016

+59.9%Q4 2016 to Q2 2026

Year by year, since 2010

Annual change, fourth quarter on fourth quarter. Private is the URA all-residential index; HDB is the HDB resale price index.

Year	Private (URA)	HDB resale	Private index
2010	+17.6%	+14.1%	139.2
2011	+5.9%	+10.7%	147.4
2012	+2.8%	+6.5%	151.5
2013	+1.1%	−0.6%	153.2
2014	−4.0%	−6.0%	147.0
2015	−3.7%	−1.6%	141.6
2016	−3.1%	−0.1%	137.2
2017	+1.1%	−1.5%	138.7
2018	+7.9%	−0.9%	149.6
2019	+2.7%	+0.1%	153.6
2020	+2.2%	+5.0%	157.0
2021	+10.6%	+12.7%	173.6
2022	+8.6%	+10.4%	188.6
2023	+6.8%	+4.9%	201.5
2024	+3.9%	+9.7%	209.4
2025	+3.3%	+2.9%	216.4
2026 H1	+1.4%	−0.4%	219.4

Swipe the table sideways.

URA private residential property price index (all residential, base Q1 2009 = 100) and HDB resale price index, both from data.gov.sg, retrieved 18 Sep 2026. Annual change is Q4 on Q4; 2026 H1 is Q2 2026 on Q4 2025. Shaded rows are the private index's down years.

What a wait has cost so far

If you started waiting at the end of the year on the left, this is how much further the private index has moved by Q2 2026, and what that move is worth on a S$1.5M purchase.

Since 2016+59.9%S$899k
Since 2013+43.2%S$648k
Since 2019+42.8%S$642k
Since 2020+39.7%S$596k
Since 2021+26.4%S$396k
Since 2022+16.3%S$245k
Since 2023+8.9%S$133k
Since 2024+4.8%S$72k
Since 2025+1.4%S$21k

Same URA index. The S$ figure applies the index change to a notional S$1.5M purchase, rounded to the nearest thousand; it is an illustration of the index, not the price path of any one unit. Past index movements do not predict future ones; individual results vary.

The three down years

When prices finally fell, almost nobody bought.

This is the part the "wait for the dip" plan never includes. The dip came. It lasted nine straight quarters, the longest losing streak in 17 years at the time. And the people waiting for it mostly kept waiting.

7,316new private homes sold by developers in 2014

7,440in 2015, the bottom of the market

10,815in 2025, with prices 60% higher

Developer sales excluding ECs: 2014 and 2015 as reported with URA's Q4 2015 release; 2025 from URA's Q4 2025 real estate statistics release, Jan 2026. Price change is the URA index, Q4 2016 to Q2 2026.

01
The fall was made by policy, not by buyers losing interest
The January 2013 ABSD and loan-to-value round, then the Total Debt Servicing Ratio in June 2013, took a large share of buyers out of the market at once. The index turned down the next year.
02
The recovery erased it in two years
2018 alone added 7.9%. By the end of 2019 the index was back above its 2013 peak, and a buyer who waited from 2013 to 2019 for a cheaper entry ended up paying slightly more than if they had never waited at all.
03
The only people the dip helped were the ones who acted inside it
A unit bought at the end of 2016 sits 59.9% higher on the index today. That gain went to buyers who moved when the headlines were worst, not to the ones who kept refreshing the news.

The last four years · URA caveat data

The index is an average. Here is what it looked like unit by unit.

I took every private non-landed resale caveat lodged with URA in the twelve months to September 2022 and compared it with the twelve months to September 2026. Same projects, same sale type, four years apart. The median resale condo went from S$1,350,000 in 2022 to S$1,688,888 this year; 284 of the 289 projects with enough caveats to compare rose, and five fell.

+28.7%all regions, median resale psf, 2022 to 2026 (15,864 and 12,725 caveats)

+30.2%OCR suburbs, S$1,175 to S$1,531 psf

+25.7%RCR city fringe, S$1,555 to S$1,954 psf

+9.6%CCR core central, S$1,991 to S$2,182 psf

Eight projects, same method

Median resale psf per project, at least ten caveats in each window. Five gainers you will recognise, and three of the five that fell, because the fall matters as much as the rise.

Project	District	2022 psf	2026 psf	Change
The Tampines Trilliant	D18	S$1,266	S$1,742	+37.7%
Kovan Melody	D19	S$1,316	S$1,806	+37.3%
Sol Acres	D23	S$1,111	S$1,537	+38.4%
Waterfront Isle	D16	S$1,274	S$1,763	+38.4%
CityLife@Tampines	D18	S$1,198	S$1,667	+39.2%
Reflections at Keppel Bay	D04	S$1,681	S$1,692	+0.7%
V on Shenton	D01	S$2,153	S$1,885	−12.4%
Marina One Residences	D01	S$2,365	S$1,908	−19.3%

Swipe the table sideways.

URA caveat data via the URA Data Service, retrieved 18 Sep 2026; resale caveats only, condominium, apartment and EC, strata area; median resale price by calendar year S$1,350,000 (14,182 caveats, 2022) and S$1,688,888 (9,352, 1 Jan–18 Sep 2026). Caveat counts per project, 2022 / 2026: Tampines Trilliant 50/49, Kovan Melody 36/22, Sol Acres 33/69, Waterfront Isle 35/17, CityLife@Tampines 49/31, Reflections 87/59, V on Shenton 23/21, Marina One 81/49. Across all 289 qualifying projects the median change was +22.6%; 59 rose 30% or more; 5 fell. Past transactions do not predict future returns.

How I decide · The four move-or-hold checks

Timing the index is the wrong question. These four are the right ones.

The record says waiting for the market has been expensive. It does not say every unit at every price is a good buy. So I do not ask "is this the right time". I ask four things that can actually be checked.

01
Entry price against the block's own record
Not the asking price, not the launch brochure. The last twelve months of caveats for that project and that stack. If you are paying above the block's record, the market has to rise before you break even; if you are at or below it, you start with a margin.
02
Who buys it from you in five to eight years
The exit buyer decides your profit, not you. For a 3-bedroom in the OCR that is usually an HDB upgrader with a specific budget; for a CCR 2-bedroom it is an investor comparing yields. I work back from that buyer's numbers to what they can pay.
03
What waiting costs you each year, in your own numbers
Rent paid, or an HDB flat whose index has just stopped moving, set against a private index that has compounded at 3.8% a year since the end of 2009. Waiting is never free; the question is whether it is cheaper than the alternative.
04
Loan headroom at today's rates, not last year's
TDSR at 55%, the loan-to-value limit, CPF that can be used, and the ABSD position if this is a second property. If the numbers only work with a rate cut, the numbers do not work.

The 3.8% a year figure is the compound annual change in the URA all-residential index from Q4 2009 (118.4) to Q4 2025 (216.4). TDSR and LTV limits per MAS; ABSD per IRAS; check the current rates before relying on them.

What's inside

Everything on this page, in full, plus the worksheets. Free, sent to your WhatsApp as a PDF. Updated for the Q2 2026 data.

Free PDFSent to WhatsAppUpdated Q2 2026No obligation

Send me the report

01
Sixteen years, quarter by quarter
The full URA and HDB index tables, with every cooling measure marked, and what a wait from each year since 2013 has cost on S$1M, S$1.5M and S$2M.
02
289 projects, 2022 against 2026
Every qualifying resale project with its psf then, psf now, caveat counts and change, sorted by district so you can find yours.
03
The four move-or-hold checks, as a worksheet
Blanks for your current home, your target project, your loan and your exit buyer. Fill it in, and the decision usually makes itself.
04
The 2026 rules in one page
ABSD, LTV, TDSR, CPF usage and the HDB MOP and wait-out rules as they stand this quarter.

Who wrote this

Stella Thio

PropNex Realty Pte Ltd · CEA [CEA no.]

Project Chief for 14 Core Central Region developments
PropNex Millionaire, five times, 2020 to 2024
Champion Luxury Tagger, six times
Former Senior Dealing Director; NUS Economics and Statistics
[Credentials as supplied in the brief. Confirm with Stella, then delete this line.]

I have sat across the table from a lot of people who were "waiting for the right time". Most of them are still waiting. The ones who did well were not braver, they just did the checks and then acted on what the checks said.

Send me the report

What clients say

Borrowed trust, from people who stopped waiting.

[4.9][Google rating and review count]

★★★★★

Sample review — replace before go-live

Sample name · HDB upgrader · [month year]

★★★★★

Sample review — replace before go-live

Sample name · First-time private buyer · [month year]

★★★★★

Sample review — replace before go-live

Sample name · Second property · [month year]

Get the report

Stop guessing what the wait is costing. Read the figure.

1
Send the form
Name, mobile, email, and what you currently own.
2
The PDF arrives on WhatsApp
Within a working day, from Stella directly.
3
Reply if you want it applied to your unit
Tell me your current home and the project you are looking at. I will run the four checks on it. No charge, no obligation.

Sixteen years of prices, one honest question: what has waiting cost?

Send me the report

You are not waiting because you can't buy. You are waiting because it feels safer.

Sixteen years. Three down years. One 10% fall, then a 60% climb.

Year by year, since 2010

What a wait has cost so far

When prices finally fell, almost nobody bought.

The fall was made by policy, not by buyers losing interest

The recovery erased it in two years

The only people the dip helped were the ones who acted inside it

The index is an average. Here is what it looked like unit by unit.

Eight projects, same method

Timing the index is the wrong question. These four are the right ones.

Entry price against the block's own record

Who buys it from you in five to eight years

What waiting costs you each year, in your own numbers

Loan headroom at today's rates, not last year's