How Much Property Can You Afford in Singapore? Work Out Your Budget, Cash and Repayments

Affordability in Singapore comes down to two ceilings, and you can only go as high as the lower one.

The first is how much you can borrow. A bank caps your total monthly loan repayments at 55% of your gross income (the Total Debt Servicing Ratio, or TDSR), and it will lend at most 75% of the price or valuation on a first home loan (the Loan-to-Value limit). Whichever produces the smaller loan is the one that applies.

The second is how much cash and CPF you can put down. Even with a full 75% loan, you still have to fund the 25% downpayment, Buyer's Stamp Duty, any Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty, and legal and valuation fees — on completion, largely in cash and CPF.

Here is the part most buyers miss: a loan approval is a ceiling, not a budget. The bank tells you what you can borrow; your bank account tells you what you can afford. For a household earning $12,000 a month buying a first private home, the sums work out roughly like this:

So the honest answer to "how much can I afford" is not one number — it is the smaller of what you can borrow and what you can fund. Run your own figures on the PropKaki Property Financial Planner to see which limit binds for you.

Rates as of 2026 — verify with MAS, IRAS and CPF. Figures are illustrative, not personalised advice.

When a bank issues an In-Principle Approval, it is answering one narrow question: what is the largest loan your income can service under the rules? It is not telling you the purchase is comfortable, or that you have the cash to complete it.

Three things sit between "approved" and "affordable":

• The cash on completion. The loan covers at most 75% of the price. The other 25%, plus stamp duties and fees, is yours to find — and at least 5% of the price must be physical cash, not CPF.
• The stress test. Banks size your loan on an assumed 4% interest rate, even when the rate you are offered is lower. That protects you from a rate rise, but it also means your real repayment room is tighter than a low headline rate suggests.
• Your life. TDSR allows repayments up to 55% of income. Living on the other 45% — with a car, children, or an income that swings — is a very different question from whether the loan is legal.

Borrowing to your maximum is a decision, not a default. A useful discipline is to keep two numbers apart on paper: the loan you can get, and the monthly repayment you actually want to live with. If you are self-employed or paid largely on commission, note that banks apply a 30% haircut to variable income before it counts — see how banks assess income for a home loan.

Three limits decide your loan. For most buyers they work like this:

TDSR (55%) counts all your debt — the new home loan plus car loans, personal loans, and credit-card minimums. Banks also stress-test the repayment at a 4% floor, and apply a 30% haircut to variable income. Full method: how to calculate TDSR.

MSR (30%) is an extra cap that only applies to HDB flats and new ECs. Because 30% is lower than 55%, it is usually MSR — not TDSR — that limits an HDB buyer. Details: MSR for an HDB loan.

LTV (75%) caps the loan itself. A first home loan tops out at 75% of price or valuation, whichever is lower; a second loan drops to 45%, and a third to 35%. A longer tenure — past 30 years, or running past age 65 — pushes the limit down to 55%. See LTV limits for a property loan.

The loan you actually get is the smallest of what these three allow. For a condo that is usually TDSR or LTV; for an HDB flat, MSR.

The loan is only part of the picture. On completion you need to fund four things:

1. The downpayment — 25% of the price. With a 75% loan you cover the remaining 25%. At least 5% of the price must be cash; the rest can come from your CPF Ordinary Account.
2. Buyer's Stamp Duty (BSD) — charged on every purchase, on a marginal scale from 1% to 6%. On a $1.84m home that is about $61,800. See how to calculate Buyer's Stamp Duty.
3. Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD), if it applies. A citizen pays nothing on a first home, but 20% on a second; PRs and foreigners pay more from the first. See ABSD rates.
4. Legal and valuation fees — usually a few thousand dollars in total.

For the $12,000-income example buying a first $1.84m condo as a citizen, the cash and CPF needed on completion looks like this:

That is why the cash side, not the loan, usually sets the real ceiling. Work out your own all-in figure with the minimum cash and CPF downpayment guide or the Property Financial Planner.

Borrowing the maximum has a consequence people feel only later: the repayment eats your entire debt allowance.

Take the $1.38m loan from our example. Over a 30-year tenure at 4%, the monthly instalment is about $6,600 — which is exactly 55% of a $12,000 income. In other words, at the top of your borrowing limit the home loan alone uses up all the room TDSR gives you, leaving nothing for a car loan or other borrowing.

Two things move the real number:

• Rate. Banks compute affordability on a 4% stress rate, but your actual instalment follows your actual rate. An HDB loan is pegged at 2.6%; bank rates float around 3–4%. A lower rate means a lower instalment — but the borrowing limit is still set on 4%. More on the stress-test rate.
• Tenure. A longer loan lowers the monthly figure but costs more interest overall, and tenures past 30 years (or past age 65) cut your LTV to 55%.

A simple test: take the instalment at your actual rate, then ask whether you would still be comfortable if it rose toward the 4% the bank assumes. If the answer is no, you are borrowing at the edge. Model it on the Property Financial Planner.

The income you need scales with the price, because the loan is capped at 55% of income and 75% of price at the same time. For a first private home, a 30-year loan at a 4% stress rate, and no other debts, the rough minimum gross household income is:

Two caveats decide whether these figures are real for you:

• They assume you also have the cash. The income above only clears the borrowing test. You still need the 25% downpayment plus stamp duty in cash and CPF — roughly $420,000 to $570,000 across the $1.5m–$2m range.
• Other debts lower them. A car or personal loan eats into the same 55%, so your usable income is less than your gross.

For an HDB flat or EC, the 30% MSR cap applies instead, so you generally need a higher income for the same loan. Run your exact case on the Property Financial Planner.

Buying when you already own a home changes affordability in two big ways.

ABSD becomes the largest single cost. A Singapore citizen pays no ABSD on a first home but 20% on a second — that is $300,000 on a $1.5m property, payable upfront in cash or CPF. PRs pay more, and foreigners pay 60%. See ABSD rates.

Your loan shrinks. A second home loan is capped at 45% LTV (versus 75% for a first), so a much larger share must come from cash.

This is why the sequence matters. If you sell your current home first, then at the point of purchase you own only one property — so you pay no ABSD and keep the 75% loan. If you buy first, you pay the ABSD upfront and claim it back only if you sell within the qualifying window (commonly six months for a completed home, for a married couple). Sell-first is cleaner on cost; buy-first is easier on logistics.

If you are upgrading, your sale proceeds also feed the new purchase — how much they free up depends on your outstanding loan, the CPF you must refund (with accrued interest), and any Seller's Stamp Duty. See Seller's Stamp Duty for the holding-period rules.

If you are buying as an investment, affordability has a second layer: does the rent cover the costs?

Gross rental yield is annual rent divided by price. A condo renting at $4,500 a month on a $1.8m purchase yields 3% gross. But the number that matters is net yield, after:

• Maintenance (MCST) fees, property tax, and insurance;
• Income tax — rental income is taxable, and a tenanted home is taxed at non-owner-occupier property-tax rates (up to 36% of Annual Value, versus 0–32% for an owner-occupier);
• Vacancy between tenants, and agent commission.

After those, a 3% gross yield often becomes closer to 2%–2.5% net — and on a freshly mortgaged property the rent frequently does not cover the full instalment, leaving you to top up the shortfall each month. That does not automatically make it a poor buy — part of every instalment repays your own principal — but you should fund a second property knowing it may cost you cash monthly, not pay you.

Work out gross and net yield for a specific unit on the Property Financial Planner.

Regulatory figures. TDSR (55%), MSR (30%), the 4% stress-test floor, the 30% variable-income haircut, LTV limits (75% / 45% / 35%) and loan tenures are from the Monetary Authority of Singapore; Buyer's and Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty rates are from IRAS; CPF usage and the HDB concessionary loan rate (2.6%) are from the CPF Board and HDB. All are current as of 2026 — rules change, so verify the live figure on MAS, IRAS, CPF or HDB before you commit.

Worked examples. The affordability, loan, repayment and stamp-duty figures are computed with the same formulas as the PropKaki Property Financial Planner — marginal Buyer's Stamp Duty, standard loan amortisation, and the TDSR and LTV limits above. They use round illustrative prices and incomes, not market medians.

What we have not claimed: that these figures are personalised advice; that any specific property is affordable for you; or that rates and yields are fixed — they move with policy and the market. This is general information, not financial advice. For your own numbers, run the Property Financial Planner or speak to a licensed mortgage adviser.