01 · The questionWhat does the jump actually cost?
One number decides most upgrade conversations, and it is rarely the one people quote.
Public to private is a price step, not a lifestyle step. The data shows how big the step is.
Most upgrade conversations start with the flat: what is it worth, what will it fetch, how much is left after the loan. That is the easy half. The hard half is the number on the other side — what the private unit costs, and whether the difference is a stretch or a wall.
Over the last twelve months, 11,188 private non-landed resale transactions cleared. We can read the entry price straight off them, by size band and by district, without a single estimate.
The median 700–900 sqft private resale cleared at S$1,450,000. That is the number the upgrade turns on.
02 · The claimPrivate is not one price. It is five.
The headline median is useless to an upgrader. The size bands are not.
Quoting “private costs about S$1,718,000” is technically true — that is the island-wide resale median — and practically useless, because nobody buys the island. They buy one unit of one size in one district.
Split by size, the picture becomes actionable. A sub-700 sqft unit cleared at a median of S$995,000. A 1,400 sqft-plus unit cleared at S$3,180,000. Same market, S$2,185,000 apart.
There is no single private price. There are five, and you only need to know the one that matches your floor plan.
03 · MethodHow we measured it
Everything below comes from one filter on one dataset. Here it is in full.
- URA caveat records, 2021-07 to 2026-07.
- Private non-landed only. Executive Condominiums excluded — they price on their own rules and would drag the entry figures down artificially.
- Resale only. New launch prices answer a different question (and we cover it separately).
- Median, never mean — one penthouse should not move an upgrader’s reference price.
- Minimum 40 transactions before any group is reported. Thin districts are dropped, not estimated.
Two things this deliberately does not do. It does not adjust for floor level or age, so a district median mixes a high floor in a new block with a low floor in an old one. And it does not tell you what your flat is worth — that is HDB resale data, a different set.
04 · Core evidencePrice by size, not by dream
Median transacted price in each of the five size bands.
The curve is not smooth, and that matters. Between 700–900 and 900–1,100 sqft the median rises S$268,000 — roughly S$1,340 per extra square foot at the margin. Between 1,100–1,400 and 1,400-plus it jumps S$1,115,000.
Note the psf column runs the other way. Sub-700 sqft units clear at 1,832 psf — the highest of any band except the largest. Small does not mean cheap per foot; it means cheap in total.
Every extra 200 sqft costs roughly S$268,000 in the middle of the market. Price the space you will use, not the space you can picture.
05 · The mechanismWhere the entry point is lowest
Ten districts ranked by what the cheaper quarter of 700–1,100 sqft resales actually cost.
The lower quartile is the honest entry number. It is what a patient buyer paying below the middle of the market actually paid — not the cheapest freak transaction, not the median that assumes you buy the average unit.
District 17 leads at S$1,036,450, with 112 transactions. District 27 follows at S$1,050,000. By the time you reach the top of this list you are paying S$1,415,000 for the same floor area.
Can you run the entry price for my shortlist of districts? →Two districts apart on the same size band can be S$123,500 apart in price. Shortlisting by district is the cheapest decision you will make.
06 · Cohort proofThe four-room reality check
Running the arithmetic the way a bank would, on a real flat sale.
Take a four-room flat that sells for S$650,000 with S$180,000 of outstanding loan. After the loan is discharged, the CPF used is refunded to your own CPF account with accrued interest — it is not cash, and it cannot be spent on the next downpayment beyond what CPF rules allow.
Say S$250,000 goes back to CPF and S$220,000 lands as cash. Against a S$1,450,000 private unit, the 25% downpayment is S$362,500, of which at least 5% — S$72,500 — must be cash. That part is comfortable. What is not comfortable is the Buyer’s Stamp Duty on top, and the fact that you now carry a S$1,087,500 mortgage instead of a paid-down flat.
The upgrade is affordable when the private downpayment plus stamp duty plus six months of the new instalment all clear from the flat proceeds — and you still have your emergency fund untouched.
Flat proceeds are mostly CPF, not cash. The upgrade is decided by the cash portion, and by the mortgage you take on.
07 · The counter-caseWhere upgraders get caught
The honest correction: three ways this arithmetic goes wrong.
First, the psf trap. The sub-700 sqft band looks affordable at a median of S$995,000, and it is — until you notice it clears at 1,832 psf, higher than the 900–1,100 band at 1,735 psf. You are paying a premium per foot to pay less in total. For a family moving out of a four-room flat, that is usually the wrong trade.
Second, the cheap-district trap. The lowest entry districts are lowest for reasons — distance, age of stock, transport. Our own data shows District 17 clearing at 1,254 psf against District 22 at 1,699 psf. Some of that gap is opportunity. Some of it is the market pricing something you will also have to live with.
Third, and most common: selling before knowing what you can buy. The flat sells in weeks. The replacement search takes months. In between, the market does not wait.
The cheapest entry is not always the best entry, and small units are not the cheap option per square foot.
08 · For youWhat it means for you
Four situations, four numbers to act on.
If you are selling a four- or five-room flat
Work out your cash-after-CPF number before you list. If it does not cover S$362,500 — the 25% downpayment on a median 700–900 sqft unit — plus stamp duty, the upgrade is a stretch, not a step.
If you want three bedrooms
Budget from the 900–1,100 sqft band: median S$1,718,000, lower quartile S$1,400,000. The lower quartile is reachable; the median is the comfortable version.
If you are stretching for four bedrooms
The 1,400-plus band clears at S$3,180,000. That is S$1,462,000 above the three-bedroom median. If the answer is “we will manage”, the answer is no.
If you are flexible on location
You have S$378,550 of room between the cheapest and dearest OCR entry districts on identical size. That is the single largest lever available to you.
What does the jump cost in your shortlist?
Pick the size you actually need. We will send the last twelve months of resale evidence for it — the districts where it clears cheapest, and what the honest entry number is.
- Median and lower-quartile price in your size band, by district
- The five cheapest entry districts, with transaction counts
- A cash-versus-CPF worksheet for your flat proceeds
One WhatsApp message back — usually same day.
We’ll WhatsApp it shortly — usually within the day.
09 · ReferenceEvery size band, in full
The complete table behind everything above.
10 · MethodSources, limits and corrections
Data: URA caveat records, 2021-07 to 2026-07, private non-landed, Executive Condominiums excluded. Thresholds: minimum 40 transactions per reported group. Bands: size bands are floor area from the caveat record, not strata area quoted in listings. Reproducibility: every figure is produced by a script against the source dataset; corrections are made in place and dated. Not investment advice. Analysis of public records, published to be argued with.
Your flat is not the hard number. The replacement is.
Two minutes in the Scenario Planner puts your flat proceeds against real entry prices in the districts you are considering.
Map my move →