THE FUSE

Let’s be honest — Singapore’s property market didn’t “cool.” It simply evolved into something else: an exclusive game where the price of admission keeps rising, and the rules are written for those who’ve already won.

For over a decade, analysts have predicted corrections that never came. Yet in 2025, prices in prime districts — East Coast, Bukit Timah, Orchard — have surged again. Properties that were going for S$4.8 million just a year ago are now easily S$6 million, if you can even find a listing. Transactions keep disappearing from the market not because sentiment is weak, but because supply is — and the players left are operating in a different financial reality.

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The illusion of cooling

Every few months, new cooling measures are introduced. And on paper, they look like guardrails: higher Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD), tighter loan limits, and macroprudential controls to “ensure affordability.”

But in practice, they have locked out aspiring upgraders and young families more than they’ve slowed capital appreciation. The measures made it harder for middle-income Singaporeans to own a second property — but they did not stop the wealthy, nor the institutional money, from quietly taking over the space.

The result: Singapore’s property market didn’t crash. It simply became closed — financially and psychologically — to those outside the top decile.

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The new definition of “asset class”

For most Singaporeans, property used to be both a home and a path to wealth. But that equation has changed.

Today, property is no longer a ladder — it’s a gate. The ABSD on second homes, at up to 20% for citizens and 60% for foreigners, means that property investing is now a preserve of those with serious capital to burn. The average salaried professional, even one earning comfortably above the median, is effectively priced out.

Ironically, the people these policies were meant to protect — ordinary Singaporeans — are the ones now stuck watching from the sidelines as cash-rich buyers continue transacting at higher and higher levels.

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Wealth, not wages, drives the market

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This is the uncomfortable truth: Singapore’s property market is no longer powered by income, but by wealth.

Even if you’re a diligent saver earning six figures a year, you can’t catch up with someone whose wealth compounds through inheritance, stock gains, or business exits. The market is now a mirror of global inequality — and in a city as small as ours, that reflection is blindingly sharp.

When foreign investors, family offices, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals park their capital here, they don’t just buy homes; they redefine what “market price” means for everyone else.

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A nation of homeowners, but fewer owners of hope

The government’s success in maintaining stability — no crash, no bubble burst — has created an unintended paradox.

Singapore has become a global benchmark for housing resilience. Yet beneath the headlines of record prices and “strong fundamentals,” lies a growing quiet resignation among younger Singaporeans: that property ownership, once a symbol of stability and progress, is now a privilege, not a right.

If the market’s biggest achievement is that it never crashes, then its greatest flaw may be that it never resets — leaving those outside the cycle perpetually priced out.

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Where do we go from here?

Perhaps the question isn’t whether Singapore’s property market will ever crash. It’s whether it can ever be fair again.

Because for all the talk of “resilience,” what we’re really seeing is a transfer — from middle-class aspiration to elite consolidation. From homes to holdings.

And maybe that’s the real story:

Singapore’s property market hasn’t crashed — it’s just stopped belonging to ordinary people.