Buyers Are Putting More of Their Own Money Into Homes. For a New Launch, They May Have No Choice

On the surface, the numbers look like a debt story. Nearly eight in 10 OCBC borrowers buying a new private launch in the first half of 2026 took a home loan of $1 million or more, The Straits Times reported. In 2021, it was four in 10.

Look a layer deeper and the picture turns. Between 2021 and the first half of 2026, OCBC's figures showed:

• New private launches: purchase prices up 49%, median mortgage size up 35%.
• Private resale homes: prices up 36%, mortgages up 32%.
• HDB resale flats: both up 32%.

When the price grows faster than the loan, the difference comes from the buyer: cash in the bank and savings in the CPF Ordinary Account. Fewer people are borrowing to the limit, too. Among OCBC's new-launch buyers, the share taking the full 75% loan-to-value fell from 67% in 2021 to 52% in the first half of 2026. For private resale buyers it slipped from 66% to 61%.

OCBC's group head of consumer secured lending, Tok Geok Peng, put it down to borrowers whose incomes grew faster than property prices. The median OCBC borrower is about 38, she told the paper, old enough to have built up savings or enough CPF to cut the loan they need.

UOB said its average private housing loan grew about 8% a year from 2023 to the first half of 2026, to more than $1 million. DBS said its loan-to-value ratio on private home loans is lower than a year ago, with delinquencies extremely low. OCBC and UOB both said borrowers' debt-servicing levels have stayed broadly stable.

That is the banks' side: a reading of the people who got a loan. It says nothing about the buyers who stretched, or those who could not buy at all.

The same report carried a number that sits uneasily beside the banks' calm. Property consultancy ETC counted 292 auction listings from January to June 2026, the highest half-yearly total since the first half of 2021. Of those, 216, or 74%, were mortgagee sales: properties put up for sale by banks after a borrower defaulted. Residential properties made up 144 listings, almost half.

ETC's Joy Tan put the contradiction down to a time lag. Banks do not repossess after one missed payment; owners get time to restructure, refinance or sell. A mortgagee sale today usually reflects pressure built up over years. Among the cases, she said, are highly leveraged investors who bought between 2020 and 2022, and landlords whose rent no longer covers the instalments, fees and taxes.

The timing fits. Private home prices rose 10.6% in 2021 and 8.6% in 2022, the paper noted, while three-year fixed mortgage rates went from about 1.15% in late 2021 to 4.25% to 4.5% by November 2022. A week earlier, The Straits Times reported that auction listings had risen for a fifth straight quarter, to 157.

OCBC's numbers describe OCBC's borrowers. To see the whole market, we took every condo and apartment sale lodged with URA, and every HDB resale, and compared the median price paid in 2021 with the first half of 2026:

PropKaki analysis of URA caveats and HDB resale records. Single-unit sales; ECs, landed homes and sub-sales excluded. OCBC's figures are its own borrowers, as reported by The Straits Times.

Our market-wide rises are a little smaller than OCBC's, but the direction agrees. OCBC's median new-launch loan grew 35%; the median new-launch price grew 40% on our numbers. The price ran ahead of the loan.

One resale detail stands out. The median private resale price per square foot rose 35%, but the median unit sold got about 6% smaller, which held the price rise to 29%. Buying a little less space is one quiet way to make a budget stretch.

Under MAS's rules, a buyer with no other home loan can borrow up to 75% of the price, on a term of up to 30 years. At least 5% must be cash; the rest of the 25% can come from cash or CPF. That 25% is the floor of what a buyer puts in. Here is what it looks like at the median prices:

Assumes the price equals the bank's valuation. Before stamp duty, legal fees and renovation.

So even a buyer who borrows the maximum must find $156,250 more of their own money for a median new launch than in 2021. "More cash and CPF" is partly arithmetic: a bigger price means a bigger 25%.

A full 75% loan reaches $1 million once the price passes $1,333,333. Here is how many sales were priced there:

Share of condo and apartment sales at $1,333,333 or more. A ceiling on who could borrow $1 million at the full 75%, not a count of loans taken.

At 95% of new-launch sales, a full 75% loan would now be $1 million or more; at OCBC, nearly eight in 10 new-launch borrowers actually borrowed that much. The gap is the buyers who chose, or had, to borrow less.

OCBC says its borrowers' incomes grew faster than prices. That may be true of its borrowers. Across the population, the picture is mixed. SingStat's General Household Survey 2025 puts the median monthly household income (from work and other sources, before transfers and taxes) at $9,099 in 2020 and $12,446 in 2025. Beside our medians for the same years:

Income: SingStat, resident households; 2025 is preliminary. Prices: PropKaki medians.

Put another way, the median new launch cost 12.2 years of median household income in 2020, and 14.2 years in 2025. The median HDB resale flat went from 3.9 to 4.2 years. Only the private resale market moved the other way, from 12.1 to 11.2 years.

So "incomes kept pace" holds for private resale, and for the buyers banks lend to. For new launches, prices ran well ahead of the typical household's pay.

The banks frame lower borrowing as prudence. Some of it surely is. But a second limit bites harder as prices rise. Besides the 75% cap, MAS's Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) says no more than 55% of a borrower's gross monthly income may go to all debt repayments. The bank must test the loan at an interest rate of at least 4% a year, a floor MAS set in 2022, even when actual rates are far lower.

We ran the median prices through that test, for a household earning SingStat's 2025 median of $12,446 a month, with no car loan or other debts and a 30-year term:

Illustration only. TDSR at 55% of $12,446 allows $6,845 a month in repayments, which carries a loan of $1,433,825 at 4% over 30 years. Before stamp duty and fees.

The resale result is reassuring: a median household can still take the full 75% on a median resale condo. The new-launch result is not. The same household hits TDSR at about 65% of the price, and needs roughly $761,175 of its own money, not the $548,750 the 25% rule implies.

That is our main addition to the banks' story. When fewer new-launch buyers take the full 75%, some are being careful. Some, we think, simply cannot stretch to it under a test rate set well above today's mortgage rates. Either way, the gap is filled with savings, CPF or the proceeds of a previous home.

ETC pointed to leveraged investors who bought in the 2020 to 2022 boom. We looked at what happened to private homes bought in those years and resold in the twelve months to 2 October 2026:

PropKaki analysis of matched URA purchase and resale caveats: condos, apartments, ECs and landed homes. Gross of stamp duty, commission, legal fees and interest.

Of 4,384 homes resold, 97% fetched more than the owner paid; only 3.3% sold at or below cost. Prices kept rising after 2022, by 6.8% in 2023, 3.9% in 2024 and 3.3% in 2025, the paper noted.

The pressure came from the cost of the loan, not the value of the home. On MAS's figures, three-month compounded SORA, the benchmark many floating loans follow, was 0.19% at the end of 2021, 3.10% at the end of 2022 and 3.71% at the end of 2023, before easing to 1.23% on 6 October 2026. A buyer who stretched in 2021 on a cheap floating rate saw instalments jump within two years. Most absorbed it. A few, especially those relying on rent, could not.

That is how a high in mortgagee listings and a 97% profit rate can both be true. One is a tail; the other is the body of the market.

Our reading, as general commentary rather than advice:

If you are eyeing a new launch, budget for the TDSR limit, not just the 25% rule. At the median price, a household on the median income would need well above the minimum down payment. Run your own numbers at the 4% test rate that banks must use. Our explainer on the TDSR stress-test rate shows how it works, and the guide to paying the down payment with cash and CPF covers what CPF can and cannot pay.

If you are buying resale, the full 75% loan is still within reach of a median-income household at the median price, on our illustration. On these numbers, resale remains the more reachable door for a median household.

More CPF lowers the loan, but it is not free money. CPF used for the home stops earning interest in the Ordinary Account, and is refunded with accrued interest when you sell.

If an auction tempts you, remember what The Straits Times reported: a guide price is not a valuation, the deposit is usually 5% or 10% of the winning bid, and completion typically comes in eight to 12 weeks. Settle your loan and CPF timing before you bid.

If you already own and rent no longer covers an investment property's instalment, talk to your bank early, while restructuring and a private sale are still options.

Our medians are not the banks' medians. OCBC measured its own borrowers. We measured every condo and apartment sale lodged with URA, excluding ECs, landed homes and sub-sales. The numbers agree in direction, not to the decimal.

A median price moves with the mix. The median new-launch unit sold in the first half of 2026 was about 12% larger than in 2021, which pushes the median up even if no home got dearer.

The $1 million share is a ceiling. It counts sales priced where a full 75% loan would reach $1 million, not loans actually taken. Buyers with an existing home loan are limited to 45%, and some pay cash.

The TDSR example is one household. Private home buyers earn more than the national median, and other debts, age and loan length all change the answer. Treat it as a picture of the squeeze, not a verdict on any buyer.

We cannot count mortgagee sales. URA caveats do not say whether a sale was a mortgagee sale, and PropKaki does not track auction listings. The ETC figures are ETC's.

Timing. Our private data runs to 4 October 2026. SingStat's 2025 income figure is preliminary.

Two kinds of numbers, kept apart.

From the reporting: OCBC's, UOB's and DBS's figures and comments, ETC's auction counts, the annual private price changes and the fixed-rate history come from The Straits Times of 19 October 2026; the auction rules and second-quarter listing count from its 11 October report.

From official sources: household income from SingStat's General Household Survey 2025; the 75% limit, 5% cash minimum and 55% TDSR from MAS's housing-loan rules; the 4% test rate from MAS's 2022 release; SORA from MAS, as read on 6 October 2026.

PropKaki's own data: medians of single-unit condo and apartment sales lodged with URA, split by new sale and resale (ECs, landed and sub-sales excluded), and of all HDB resales, by calendar year and for January to June 2026. Down payments are 25% of the median, with 5% as the cash minimum. The TDSR illustration finds the loan that 55% of $12,446 a month carries at 4% over 30 years. The 2020 to 2022 outcomes match each private home's purchase caveat to its resale caveat, for resales in the twelve months to 2 October 2026.

The news:

• The Straits Times: Home buyers using more cash and CPF for down payment even as mortgage loans rise, 19 October 2026.
• The Straits Times: Singapore property auctions: No guarantee of bargains, 11 October 2026.

Official:

• SingStat: General Household Survey 2025, executive summary, 2026.
• Monetary Authority of Singapore: Rules for new housing loans.
• Monetary Authority of Singapore, MND and HDB: Measures to promote sustainable conditions in the property market, 29 September 2022.
• Monetary Authority of Singapore: Domestic interest rates (SORA).

The data:

• PropKaki analysis of URA private residential caveats (2019 to 4 October 2026), HDB resale records (2019 to October 2026) and matched private purchase and resale caveats.

This is commentary by the PropKaki Editorial Desk on reporting by The Straits Times. The bank and consultancy figures and the comments quoted belong to that reporting; the price, down-payment, income and TDSR analysis, the framing and the opinions are ours.

It is opinion and general information, not financial, lending or property advice. Your own loan depends on your income, age, debts and the bank's assessment.

Published 20 October 2026.