How do I check whether a property made money?
Updated 1 September 2026
The Short Answer
Open the Profitability Model, give it the property and the two transactions, and it works out the gain against what it cost to hold. It works from public records, so it can only see what was recorded — renovation, financing and what someone paid in cash are invisible to it.
It does the arithmetic honestly, including telling you what it cannot see.
Where is it?
Workspace → Free Tools → Profitability Model.
It sits in the catalogue's research group alongside the Pricing Model, News and Insights.
What does it work out?
What it sold for against what it was bought for, less the costs that are knowable — stamp duty, the holding period, the obvious ones.
It shows its working, so you can see which line you disagree with.
What can it not see?
3 things, and they matter:
- Renovation — a place that gained 200k may have had 150k spent on it.
- Financing — interest paid over the hold is not on any public record.
- Cash outside the transaction — furniture, agreements between parties.
A figure from this model is a gross picture, and it says so.
Where do the transaction figures come from?
URA for private and HDB for flats.
So the two prices are facts. It is what happened between them that the model cannot see.
Can I use it on a place I do not own?
Yes. The transactions are public records, so you can run it on anything.
It is a useful thing to run before advising a seller on what they are likely to walk away with.