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The biggest dam in the world, explained: tallest vs largest
Four different structures can each claim the title, depending on whether you measure height, bulk, reservoir or output. None of them is wrong.
Data
Singapore property
Every resale flat transaction on the public record, aggregated three ways, plus what the published lending rules say you can borrow against.
+1.6%
Median, Aug 2026 S$640,000 against the trailing 12-month median
+58.0%
Since Jan 2017 S$405k → S$640k median transacted price
Record
Transactions counted 238,194 Jan 2017 to Aug 2026
Spread
Dearest to cheapest town Bukit Timah → Jurong East S$990k against S$520k
Median of the last 12 months, towns with 20 or more sales
+1.6%
Median monthly rent S$3,250 Jul 2026 approvals, all towns
Record
Contracts counted 206,942 Jan 2021 to Jul 2026
Spread
Dearest to cheapest town Bishan → Ang Mo Kio S$3,600 against S$2,900
Housing & Development Board, renting out of flats — approved contracts approved contracts, not asking prices
The price is set, not discovered
A build-to-order flat never passes between two buyers, so there is no series of transacted prices to aggregate. The board announces a project, prices it with grants already applied, and allocates by ballot among eligible applicants. What gets published per exercise is a range, not a record.
Which is why the resale chart exists and this one does not
Everything on the other tabs comes from a market: two parties agreeing a number, recorded afterwards. That is what makes a median meaningful. A ballot produces an allocation, and a median allocation is not a price.
The gap between the two is the price of waiting
A new flat is cheaper than a resale one nearby and comes with a ballot, several years of construction and a five-year holding period before it can be sold. The resale flat is available now. The difference between the two figures is what that wait is worth.
What the queue actually looks like
Eligibility runs on citizenship, on forming a qualifying household and on income ceilings that differ by flat type. Location is priced through the conditions attached rather than through the price alone.
Read the explainerTwo markets, one of them closed
Roughly eight in ten residents live in public housing, and that market publishes every transaction. The private market — condominiums, landed property, new launches — records its transactions through the planning authority's own developer interface, which is available on a registered key.
Why a listings figure is not a substitute
The numbers that circulate freely are asking prices. An asking price is what a seller hopes for, published by a party with an interest in it being high, and it is not what anybody paid. Charting one beside a transacted median would put two different kinds of number on the same axis.
What the public record still tells you
The town medians on the other tabs track the private market closely, because the two compete for the same buyers at the upper end. When Bukit Timah and Queenstown pull away from the rest, that spread is largely a private-market effect showing up in public-housing prices.
And the constraint that only applies here
A public flat is a 99-year lease with rules on who may buy it and when it may be sold. A private one is not. Comparing the two on price alone leaves out most of what separates them.
Median across the whole record, Jan 2017 onward
How much can you afford?
Worked from the published rules: repayment capped at 30% of gross income, a 75% loan ceiling, 25-year tenure, and the 4% rate floor used to test eligibility. It is a ceiling, not an offer.
Estimated ceiling —
Maximum loan—
Monthly repayment cap—
Housing & Development Board, resale flat transactions aggregated 2026-08-18
02
Test yourself
The answers come out of the record above, not from a survey.
Test yourself
What is the median price of a resale flat, across every town?
S$640,000
The median of every transaction approved in Aug 2026. Across the trailing twelve months it is S$630,000, and the town medians run from S$520k to S$990k.
Test yourself
And the median monthly rent on an approved flat contract?
S$3,250/mo
From 206,942 approved contracts. A one-room flat runs at S$1,675 and an executive at S$3,300 — a spread far narrower than the sale prices.
Housing & Development Board, renting out of flats — approved contracts
03
By district
Local figures on each district page.
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