HDB Prices Have Now Fallen Three Quarters Running. Added Together, It Comes to 0.6%

The numbers came out on 1 October, the way they do every quarter: an early estimate from HDB, a few lines long. Resale prices fell 0.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2026.

On its own that would be a non-event. What made it a headline is the order it arrived in. Prices dipped 0.1 per cent in the first quarter, which The Straits Times noted was the first fall in close to seven years. Then 0.3 per cent in the second quarter. Now 0.2 per cent in the third. CNA put it simply: a third consecutive quarterly decline.

Volumes did not fall with prices. HDB counted 7,528 resale transactions in the quarter, 5.2 per cent more than the 7,157 in the same quarter of 2025. Flats are still changing hands at a normal pace. They are just not changing hands at higher prices.

If you own a flat, or you are trying to buy one, "three falls in a row" sounds like a turn in the market. Before deciding whether it is, it helps to look at how big the falls actually are.

The third-quarter figure carries a detail the first two did not. On 28 July 2026, the Government lifted the 15-month wait-out period, the rule that made private property owners sell their private home and wait 15 months before buying a non-subsidised resale flat.

The wait-out was introduced in September 2022, when HDB resale prices were climbing fast and cash-rich private owners were seen as part of the reason. National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat said it was removed because market conditions had improved and resale prices had moderated significantly. We wrote at the time that the measure had stopped being a brake and become a weather report: it told you what the market had been like, not what it was doing.

Lifting it was expected to bring some downgraders back. Two months in, HDB says it has not seen a significant increase in either the prices or the number of resale flats bought by private property downgraders. The quarter that included the change came in lower, not higher.

That is the most interesting sentence in the release, and we come back to it below.

On the same day, URA published its own flash estimate for private homes, and it pointed the other way. The private price index rose 1.4 per cent in the third quarter, up from a 0.5 per cent rise in the second. URA said it was the strongest quarterly gain since the fourth quarter of 2024, and that prices rose an average of 0.9 per cent a quarter over the first three quarters of 2026.

Volumes went the other way. Private sales fell by about 30 per cent quarter on quarter.

(One small correction to the record while we are here: some early reports described the private rise as year on year. URA's release is clear that 1.4 per cent is the change from the previous quarter.)

So the two markets spent the quarter moving apart. HDB resale flats sold more often at slightly lower prices. Private homes sold less often at noticeably higher ones. We wrote in August that the market had split in more than two directions; this quarter is another data point for that.

Not far, and the clearest way to see it is on HDB's official Resale Price Index (2009 Q1 = 100), the same measure the flash estimate comes from. These are the last eight finalised quarters:

Source: HDB Resale Price Index. The Q3 2026 flash estimate (-0.2%) is not yet in the finalised series.

Read the two halves of the table. In the year to 2025Q3, the index climbed from 192.9 to 203.7, a rise of 5.6 per cent. Since that peak it has slipped to 202.8, and the third-quarter flash takes off another fifth of a per cent. HDB's three quarterly falls, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.2 per cent, add up to about 0.6 per cent.

After three falls in a row, the index is roughly back to where it stood in the second quarter of 2025, at 202.9. Three straight declines is accurate. "Prices are falling" gives the wrong picture. The right word is flat.

This is where our own resale records add something the flash release does not. Here are the national median resale prices by flat type for 2026 H1, the latest complete half-year:

National medians across all towns. The current half-year is left out until enough resales have been lodged.

None of those is falling. The 4-room median, the flat type that makes up most of the market, is $630,000, exactly where it was a year earlier.

The two measures can disagree because they answer different questions. HDB's index tries to track the price of a comparable flat over time, adjusting for which flats happen to sell. A median just takes the middle transaction of whatever sold. If the mix of what sells shifts (more older flats, more flats in cheaper towns, or the reverse), the median moves even when like-for-like prices do not, and the other way around.

We have written before that older flats are taking a growing share of resales. In practice, the index's gentle slide and the flat medians are telling the same story: a market that has stopped rising, not one that is falling.

Not in any way HDB can see yet. Its statement is direct: no significant increase in the prices or number of resale flats bought by private property downgraders since the wait-out was lifted.

There are a few reasons that is less surprising than it sounds.

The rule bit only a narrow group. It applied to private owners buying a non-subsidised resale flat, and many people who sell a private home do not want to buy an HDB flat at all. Lifting it opened a door that most of the market was never standing behind.

Two months is short. Someone who decides in August to downsize from a condo still has to sell the condo first. Those decisions take longer than one quarter to show up in resale records.

The timing was the reason it could be lifted. The measure went because prices had already cooled. If downgraders were going to push prices up, that would have been a reason to keep it.

The 5.2 per cent rise in resale volume is real, but HDB has not linked it to downgraders, and neither should we. Volumes also respond to how many flats reach their minimum occupation period, to interest rates and to BTO supply. One quarter's count cannot separate them.

In direction, yes. The two indices are on different bases, so they can only be compared on direction, not level. On direction, they have moved apart for three quarters.

Our copy of URA's index, which runs to the second quarter, shows the private side climbing steadily:

Add the Q3 flash of +1.4 per cent and the private market is pulling ahead while HDB resale is flat.

The line that matters most for HDB households is the Outside Central Region one: 3.9 per cent a year. The suburban condos that most upgraders buy into are where private prices have been rising fastest, at the same time as the flat they would sell to fund it has stopped appreciating. For an upgrader, the gap has widened on both sides.

Mostly, it means pricing off what is happening now rather than what happened in 2024.

The run-up years taught many sellers to expect each quarter's sale to beat the last. For about a year that has not been true. A flat that would have sold at a record in 2024 may now sell at roughly the same price as a similar flat did six months ago, and asking well above the recent comparable sales in your block and town is the most common way to sit unsold.

The volume figure is the good news for sellers. 7,528 flats changed hands in the quarter, more than a year earlier. Buyers have not left. They have just stopped paying more each quarter.

There is also more competition on the way. HDB will launch about 7,960 flats in November across Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh and Yishun, including community care apartments for seniors in Toa Payoh. Some buyers who would otherwise be looking at resale will wait for the ballot. If you are selling a flat in or near one of those towns, expect buyers to bring that up.

Our town-by-town resale guide shows the medians to check your own asking price against. This is general commentary, not advice on your sale.

We do not forecast prices, and nobody should treat a flash estimate as a forecast. But it is worth being clear about what the numbers do and do not show.

They show a market that has stopped rising. Three falls totalling about 0.6 per cent, flat medians, and rising volumes. That is a market where buyers have some room to negotiate and less pressure to pay above valuation.

They do not show a market that is about to drop sharply. Sharp falls usually come with falling volumes, as sellers pull back and buyers wait. This quarter, more flats sold than a year ago.

HDB's own message is worth reading in full: it described the macroeconomic outlook as highly uncertain, advised households to be prudent with property purchases and mortgages, and said the Government will continue to monitor the market and adjust policy as necessary. Lifting the wait-out was itself one of those adjustments. If prices kept slipping, more could follow.

If you need a flat in the next year or two, a flat market is a reasonable one to buy in. If you are waiting for a fall large enough to change what you can afford, there is nothing in these figures that suggests one is coming.

A few limits, because a fraction-of-a-per-cent story needs them more than most.

Flash estimates are early. HDB and URA publish them on the first day after the quarter ends, before every transaction in it has been recorded, and revise them when the full figures are released. A 0.2 per cent move can be revised to zero, or to a bigger fall. Treat the third fall as provisional until the final figures are out.

The index and the medians are different tools. HDB's index is the official like-for-like measure. Our medians are the middle of whatever sold in a half-year, across all towns, and are affected by the mix of flats sold. We show both because they agree on the overall picture (flat), not because they measure the same thing.

National figures hide town differences. A national dip of 0.2 per cent can include towns where prices rose and towns where they fell more. Your own block, storey, size and lease left matter more than any national number.

The private and HDB indices are on different bases. We compare them only on direction.

What we would not hedge on: on HDB's own index, three quarters of declines add up to about 0.6 per cent, after a year that added 5.6 per cent. That is the scale of the change.

Two kinds of numbers, kept apart.

From the reporting and official releases: the Q3 2026 HDB flash estimate (-0.2%), the Q1 and Q2 falls, the 7,528 and 7,157 transaction counts and the 5.2% rise, HDB's statement on private downgraders, the wait-out dates, the Minister's reasoning, the November BTO launch, and HDB's advice to households all come from The Straits Times and CNA reporting linked below. The private flash (+1.4% quarter on quarter, the strongest since Q4 2024's +2.3%, a 0.9% average over three quarters, sales down about 30%) comes from URA's release.

PropKaki's own data, as of 6 October 2026: the HDB Resale Price Index trend is our copy of HDB's official index (2009 Q1 = 100), finalised quarters to 2026Q2. The national median resale prices by flat type are ours, calculated over HDB resale records for 2026 H1, the latest half-year with enough resales lodged. The private index detail by region is our copy of URA's official private residential price index, to 2026Q2.

The caveats that matter: flash estimates are revised; the latest half-year of resales is left out until it is complete; medians are affected by the mix of flats sold; and resale prices are gross of levies, commission and legal fees.

The news:

• The Straits Times: HDB resale prices dip for third straight quarter, even after lifting of 15-month wait-out period, 1 October 2026.
• CNA: HDB resale prices fall 0.2% in Q3; private home prices rise 1.4%, 1 October 2026.
• Urban Redevelopment Authority: Release of flash estimate for 3rd Quarter 2026 private residential property price index, 1 October 2026.

The data:

• HDB Resale Price Index (2009 Q1 = 100), quarterly to 2026Q2, as held by PropKaki.
• PropKaki national median HDB resale prices by flat type, 2026 H1, with year-on-year change.
• URA private residential property price index, overall, landed and by market segment, to 2026Q2, as held by PropKaki.

This is commentary by the PropKaki Editorial Desk on reporting by The Straits Times and CNA and on official releases from HDB and URA. The flash estimates and official statements belong to those sources; the index and median analysis, the framing and the opinions are ours.

It is opinion and general information, not financial, legal or property advice, and not a forecast of where prices will go. Flash estimates are provisional and will be revised.

Published 6 October 2026.