Two Flats, One Front Door: What Jumbo HDB Flats Really Sell For

When Aileen Tan's father moved out of his semi-detached house in 2018, CNA reported, he had one condition: the new home had to be big enough for his grandchildren to play in and for the weekend parties he loved. He found it in a 1,615 sq ft jumbo flat in Clementi, made by joining a two-room and a three-room flat. It has four rooms and three bathrooms.

After he died, Ms Tan, now 61, inherited it. She lives there and rents out two spare rooms for a combined S$3,300 a month. She told CNA she could not think of anything more she would want from a home.

She is selling anyway. Her children live overseas and she expects to travel often. The flat is listed at about S$1.1 million, with about 56 years left on its lease, and has been on the market for more than a year. In the first five months, she said, it drew two enquiries and two viewings. Things picked up after July, when the 15-month wait-out for private-property owners buying a resale flat was lifted.

Jumbo flats are an accident of history. HDB began combining adjoining flats in the late 1980s, when new towns such as Woodlands, Yishun and Bedok had unsold flats, NUS Professor Sing Tien Foo told CNA. The flat conversion scheme followed in 1993, so families who needed more space could merge flats and stay in their neighbourhood.

HDB no longer sells jumbo flats. New ones appear only when an owner can buy the flat next door and the conditions line up. The agent for the Telok Blangah flat, Thomas Tong, described it as a matter of "timing and luck": an owner can buy the neighbour's unit only after their own minimum occupation period, and must then serve a fresh one before selling the combined flat.

His listing is what put the scheme in the news. The 1,465 sq ft flat went up on PropertyGuru in September at S$2.18 million, and HDB said it would review the scheme. The price is now S$1,999,999. Mr Tong said the enquiries have been heavy because the flat has 91 years of lease left, unusual for a jumbo. HDB has not said what the review covers or when it will finish.

The people CNA spoke to want the same thing: room to live together, separately. Interior designer Vivian Wang, 30, lives with her husband and his parents, who are foreigners and cannot buy a flat of their own. The couple bought a 1,600 sq ft jumbo flat in Bendemeer this year for S$940,000 so the two households could keep their own hours and share the common area. CNA said it has about 46 years of lease left; she does not plan to sell.

Rafael Shah and Ann Baki bought their 1,900 sq ft jumbo for S$650,000 in 2012 and spent about S$100,000 turning it into a dual-key home, with two kitchens and separate entrances, so Mr Shah's mother could live with them. When they tried to sell this year at about S$1.2 million, roughly one buyer in 10 liked the layout. A sale fell through over timing, and they now rent out part of the flat for about S$3,500 a month.

Professor Sing described the market as niche and possibly illiquid. Mr Tong said the hardest part is often financing: buyers who are willing to pay cannot always borrow enough for an old flat at a high price. The resale record lets us put numbers on both points.

Very few. HDB's resale records label merged flats "Adjoined flat", and our count matches what MND told Parliament in October: 408 resales from 2016 to 2025, and a 2025 median of $910,000.

PropKaki analysis of HDB resale registrations (data.gov.sg), flat model "Adjoined flat". October 2026 is still being registered.

The market has thinned. From 2000 to 2010 an average of 68 jumbo flats changed hands a year; from 2017 to 2025 the average was 42. In 2025, 37 sold. Set against CNA's estimate of about 2,900 jumbo flats, that is about 1.3% of them a year. Across all HDB flats, the 25,084 resales of 2025 were about 2.3% of the 1,110,981 sold flats in HDB's block records. Jumbo flats are about 0.25% of the stock but, from October 2024 to September 2026, only 0.16% of resales.

Our view: this is the illiquidity Professor Sing describes. A jumbo owner is not selling into a market of thousands of similar flats. In a typical year there are three or four jumbo sales a month in the whole country, and over the past two years they were spread across 21 towns.

From October 2024 to September 2026, 82 jumbo flats were resold. The median was $895,000, and prices ran from $620,000 to $1,530,000. 24 of the 82 fetched $1 million or more. The median flat was 140 sqm (1,507 sq ft), sold at $589 psf, and had 52 years of lease left. HDB records them as 5-room (53), executive (23) or 4-room (6). Ang Mo Kio had the most (15), then Bedok and Kallang/Whampoa (10 each).

The top of the market looks like this:

PropKaki analysis of HDB resale registrations, 2000 onwards.

The record, $1.53 million, is a 150 sqm flat on Moh Guan Terrace in Tiong Bahru with 45 years of lease left. The same block holds the second-highest sale. Six of the top 10 are in Ang Mo Kio. Every one of them is in a central or mature estate, and every one has a lease that began in the 1970s or 1980s.

One detail from the reporting: HDB's September registrations include a 148 sqm jumbo on Bendemeer Road sold for exactly $940,000, the price Ms Wang's family paid. HDB lists its remaining lease as 53 years, not the 46 reported, so we cannot be sure it is the same flat.

You might expect a very large flat to sell for less per square foot, as big homes usually do. Jumbo flats mostly do not. We compared each of the 82 sales with ordinary resales in the same town whose leases began within three years of it, over the same two years:

PropKaki analysis of HDB resale registrations, October 2024 to September 2026. Towns with five or more jumbo resales. Multi-Generation and 3Gen flats, which are purpose-built rather than merged, are left out.

Across all 82 sales, the median jumbo flat sold at 105% of its same-town, same-era peers' median $psf; 34% sold below it. Against same-era 5-room and executive flats in the same town, the median jumbo fetched 121% of their median price.

Our view: in most towns buyers pay full price per square foot for the extra space, and in Ang Mo Kio and Clementi a little more. Kallang/Whampoa and Bukit Merah are the exceptions, where jumbo flats sold for a little less per square foot than ordinary flats nearby. That is a sign the premium depends on the estate and the layout, not on size alone.

The listing is in Telok Blangah, as it appears on the property portals: 1,465 sq ft, five bedrooms, $1,999,999. That is $1,365 psf today, and was $1,488 psf at $2.18 million. HDB's block records show its block was completed in 2017: 30 storeys and 282 flats, most of them 4-room. That fits the 91-year lease Mr Tong described.

Three ways to read the price:

• Against other jumbo flats. It asks 31% more than the highest jumbo resale on record, and 44% more per square foot. The five jumbo flats resold on Telok Blangah's older streets in the past two years went for $725,000 to $890,000, with 47 to 50 years of lease left.
• Against its own block. 23 4-room flats in the same block were resold from October 2024 to September 2026, for $925,000 to $1,080,000, a median of $970,000 or $969 psf. The latest had 91 years of lease left. Other 4-room flats in the block are advertised at $880,000 to $1,150,000. Two of the block's median 4-room resales add up to $1,940,000, close to the asking price, for a flat 1.46 times the size of one 4-room.
• Against the record itself. No jumbo flat with a lease that began after 1989 has a resale on record. Every jumbo sold since 2000 had a lease starting between 1967 and 1989. A near-new jumbo with 91 years left has no direct comparable sale.

Our view: the asking price looks less strange set against its own block than against other jumbo flats. The seller is in effect pricing it as two young 4-room flats with a premium for rarity. Whether a buyer agrees is the open question. As Professor Sing put it, a record only becomes real when a sale completes near that price.

Every jumbo flat resold since 2000 sits in a block whose lease began between 1967 and 1989. So they are old flats:

PropKaki analysis of HDB resale registrations, October 2024 to September 2026. Shares are rounded and may not sum to exactly 100%.

The median jumbo had 52 years left; the median for all other resales was 72 years. The range for jumbo flats was 40 to 61 years.

That matters because of the age-95 test. If the flat's remaining lease lasts the youngest buyer to age 95, the buyer can use CPF up to the lower of the price or the valuation, and an HDB loan is not pro-rated (CPF; HDB). If not, both are scaled down and the buyer pays more in cash.

PropKaki analysis of HDB resale registrations. Remaining lease is HDB's figure at the time of sale.

This is Mr Tong's financing problem in numbers. Jumbo flats suit young families who need the space, but for a 35-year-old buyer almost none passes the test. The buyers they do suit are older, or have the cash, which is a much smaller group. It also explains the heavy interest in the Telok Blangah flat: with 91 years left, it passes the test for any buyer.

HDB has not said what the review covers. Professor Sing suggested the scheme could be tightened so that new conversions do not push up resale prices around them, and said it may no longer suit a market where resale prices are much higher than when it began. That is his view, not HDB's.

Our view: a review aimed at new conversions would mostly affect flats like the Telok Blangah one, with long leases in newer blocks. The jumbo flats that reach the resale market are overwhelmingly old, and their market is already set by lease and location. On the record, tighter rules would most likely make existing jumbo flats a little rarer, not cheaper.

If you are buying, a few points before you sign:

• Run the age-95 test for the youngest buyer. For a typical jumbo with about 52 years left, CPF and an HDB loan are pro-rated for anyone younger than 43, so check how much cash you will need.
• Price it against same-era flats in the same town, not other jumbos. The town table above is a fair starting point.
• Check the layout. Dual-key arrangements appeal to some buyers and put off most others, as the Shah family found.

If you are selling, expect a long wait and few comparable sales. Ms Tan's experience after the wait-out was lifted suggests private-property owners buying without an HDB loan are part of the buyer pool now. A price well above the record for your estate is a statement of hope, as Professor Sing said, until a buyer signs.

Five limits to keep in mind:

• The label is a proxy. We count flats HDB labels "Adjoined flat". It matches MND's totals exactly, but a merged flat recorded under another label would be missed. None of the labelled ones has a lease starting after 1989.
• The stock figure is not ours. Turnover uses CNA's estimate of about 2,900 jumbo flats, so the 1.3% is approximate.
• Peer comparisons are rough. "Same town, same lease era" does not control for floor, block, view or layout. With six to 15 jumbo sales a town, one unusual flat can move a median.
• Asking prices are not sales. The Telok Blangah price and the 4-room asking prices are what the sellers advertise. We report them as advertised.
• The data lags. October 2026 registrations are still coming in, so any recent sale may not be in our figures yet.

None of this changes the main finding. Jumbo flats sell at full price per square foot, but most of them carry leases that shut out younger buyers.

From the reporting: the owners' stories, the 2,900 estimate, the Telok Blangah listing and its prices, HDB's review, the history of the scheme, MND's parliamentary figures and the comments from Professor Sing Tien Foo and Thomas Tong come from CNA of 1 November 2026.

From CPF and HDB: the age-95 rule for CPF use and the HDB loan (read 6 November 2026).

PropKaki's own data:

• Jumbo resales use HDB resale registrations from data.gov.sg, 2000 to October 2026, flat model "Adjoined flat". Multi-Generation and 3Gen flats are purpose-built and left out. Two-year figures cover October 2024 to September 2026.
• Peer comparisons match each jumbo sale to ordinary resales in the same HDB town, over the same two years, whose leases began within three years of it.
• Turnover for all flats divides 2025 resales by sold flats in HDB's block records.
• Block details come from HDB's block records; asking prices are as advertised on property portals in August and September 2026, unchanged.

How we work: PropKaki methodology.

The news:

• CNA: Rare, roomy and pricey? Inside Singapore's niche jumbo HDB flat market, 1 November 2026.

Official:

• CPF: Using your CPF to buy a home.
• HDB: Housing loan from HDB.
• HDB resale flat prices, via data.gov.sg.

Further reading on PropKaki: The 15-month wait-out is scrapped · Million-dollar HDB flats · Lease decay and resale prices.

This is commentary by the PropKaki Editorial Desk on reporting by CNA. The owners' stories, the listing and the quotes belong to that reporting; the resale analysis, the framing and the opinions are ours.

It is opinion and general information, not legal, financial or property advice, and not a valuation of any flat. Asking prices are shown as advertised. If you are buying a jumbo flat, check how much CPF and loan you can use with CPF and HDB before you commit.

Published 6 November 2026.