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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Private home prices in Singapore rose 1.4% in the third quarter of 2026, according to the flash estimate of the private residential property price index that the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) released on 1 October 2026. The quarter before, the same index had risen 0.5%.
The same release carries a second figure that points the other way. The number of sale transactions the URA counted for the quarter was about 30% lower than in the second quarter. Prices moved faster while fewer homes changed hands, and the two facts have to be read together.
The detail under the headline matters as much as the headline. Landed homes and the suburbs did the lifting. The most central district of the market slipped a little. And the whole estimate rests on data that stop in the middle of September, which is why the URA itself asks for it to be read with care.
Index change and release date: URA flash estimate, 1 October 2026. Count of consecutive quarters: EdgeProp Singapore, 1 October 2026.
What the flash estimate shows
The URA publishes its price index for private homes every quarter, and gives an early reading, the flash estimate, before the full figures. The reading for the third quarter of 2026 puts the overall index 1.4% above the second quarter.
Over the first three quarters of 2026, the URA says, the index rose by an average of 0.9% per quarter. That is the same average as in the corresponding period of 2025. The third quarter is quicker than the one before it, but the year so far has moved at the pace of the year before.
EdgeProp Singapore, reporting on the release the same day, counted the third quarter as the eighth straight quarter of price gains, and as the fastest quarterly rise in almost two years: the last faster one, it wrote, was the 2.3% increase of the fourth quarter of 2024. By its count, prices were up 2.8% over the first nine months of 2026.
Related readUS home prices slipped 0.1% in August as annual growth edged upThe index is split in two families of homes. Non-landed homes rose 0.9% in the third quarter, after a fall of 0.1% in the second. Landed homes rose 2.8%, after 2.5%. Landed property has now posted two strong quarters in a row, and it is the faster of the two families by a wide margin.
Suburbs lead, the core slips
Inside the non-landed family, the URA follows three areas: the Core Central Region, the Rest of Central Region and the Outside Central Region. The Straits Times, in its report of 1 October, describes the second as the city fringe and the third as the suburbs.
The three did not move together, and none of them repeated what it did in the second quarter.
| Segment | Second quarter 2026 | Third quarter 2026 (flash) |
|---|---|---|
| All private homes | +0.5% | +1.4% |
| Landed | +2.5% | +2.8% |
| Non-landed, all areas | -0.1% | +0.9% |
| Non-landed, Core Central Region | +1.8% | -0.1% |
| Non-landed, Rest of Central Region | -1.2% | +0.2% |
| Non-landed, Outside Central Region | -0.1% | +2.2% |
Source: URA flash estimate for the third quarter of 2026, released 1 October 2026. Third-quarter figures are preliminary.
The suburbs carried the non-landed index. They turned from a marginal fall to the largest rise of the three areas. The city fringe recovered part of what it lost in the spring. The core, which had been the strongest area in the second quarter, was the only segment in the release to post a fall, and a very small one.
The swing from one quarter to the next is wide in every area. A region that leads one quarter trails the next. That is a reason to be careful with any single quarterly reading of one area, and more so with a preliminary one.
Fewer sales behind the higher prices
The URA counted sale transactions for the third quarter up to the middle of September, and set them against the full count of the second quarter. It also gave the running total for the year, next to the same period of 2025.
Related readHow to read US house price measures: FHFA index and Census mediansSource: URA flash estimate, 1 October 2026. The third-quarter count stops in mid-September; the second-quarter count covers the full quarter.
The quarterly gap works out to the fall of about 30% that the URA states. The year-to-date gap is smaller: the 2026 total is about 20% under the 2025 one.
The two quarterly bars do not cover the same length of time, and the URA says so in its own wording. One analysis blog, TRIBE, made the point in a note dated 1 October: by its account, the flash estimate of the second quarter had captured 5,420 of the 6,148 transactions of the final count, or 88.2%. Compared with that part-quarter figure, it puts the third-quarter fall at about 20.7% rather than 30%. That is the blog's own calculation, not a URA figure. The full statistics will settle the final count.
On the side of new homes, the picture comes from agency research quoted by EdgeProp. Huttons estimates that about 1,100 new homes were launched in the third quarter, 38.3% fewer than in the second quarter and 73.8% fewer than a year earlier, and that developers sold about 1,100 units, down 48.6% on the quarter and 66.4% on the year. Mark Yip, chief executive of Huttons Asia, told EdgeProp that this was the lowest number of new homes sold in a third quarter since 1998, and linked it to the small number of launches.
Over the first nine months of 2026, the same Huttons figures give 4,727 units launched, down 46.6%, and 5,254 units sold by developers, down 33.3%. The agency's estimates of demand by area show where the fall sat: down 39.2% in the Outside Central Region, down 26.3% in the Rest of Central Region, and up 1.2% in the Core Central Region.
Related readZillow: US home values slip in September as pending sales drop 8.5%Why prices rose on thin volume
A price index can rise because similar homes sell for more, or because the homes that sell in a given quarter are dearer ones. The agency researchers quoted by EdgeProp point to the second explanation for the third quarter.
Christine Sun, chief researcher and strategist at Realion (OrangeTee & ETC) Group, told EdgeProp that prices grew faster because a larger share of the homes sold were sold at higher prices. The figures the outlet published support the reading. Leaving Executive Condominiums aside, homes sold for S$2 million or more made up 53.6% of transactions in the third quarter, against 49.2% in the second. Among new sales alone, the share went from 52.3% to 71.7%.
The launches of the quarter were few. EdgeProp lists five: Lentor Gardens Residences with 499 units, Dunearn House with 380, Amberwood at Holland with 212, The Bronze with 27 and Duet @ Emily with 20. Dunearn House sold 56% of its units on its launch weekend, the outlet reports. Amberwood at Holland sold 11% on its own, at an average of S$3,019 per square foot.
Marcus Chu, chief executive of ERA Singapore, named another source of demand in the same article: housing wealth passed from one generation to the next. "We are seeing older homeowners right-size and unlock equity from properties that have appreciated significantly," he told EdgeProp.
The public housing market gives a point of comparison. The Housing & Development Board's own flash estimate put its resale price index at 202.4 for the third quarter, 0.2% below the second quarter. It was the third quarterly decrease in a row, after falls of 0.1% in the first quarter and 0.3% in the second. Private prices and resale flat prices moved in opposite directions over the quarter.
Related readAustralian home values fall 1.1% in September, a sixth monthly dropSupply and the URA's word of caution
The URA release does not stop at prices. It sets out the supply that is on the way, and it repeats a warning to households.
On supply, the authority counts 4,745 private residential units to be launched under the Confirmed List of the Government Land Sales programme for the second half of 2026. For the whole of 2026, the Confirmed List supply comes to 9,320 units, which the URA describes as more than 50% above the annual average of the past ten years. The total supply of private homes expected to be completed over the next few years, Executive Condominium units included, is around 60,600 units.
On risk, the URA describes the macroeconomic outlook as highly uncertain, global and domestic interest rates included, and advises households to exercise prudence when they buy property and take on mortgage loans.
EdgeProp's report gives two of the elements behind that uncertainty. The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by 25 basis points in September, to a range of 3.75% to 4%, its first increase since July 2023. And retrenchments in Singapore rose from 3,830 in the first quarter of 2026 to 4,620 in the second. Leonard Tay, head of research at Knight Frank Singapore, told the outlet that the labour market is the thing to watch, because job insecurity could lead buyers to wait.
A flash estimate is an early reading, not the final figure
The URA compiles it from transaction prices submitted for stamp duty payment and from developers' unit sales data, both up to mid-September. "The public is advised to interpret the flash estimates with caution," the authority writes. The full statistics follow on 23 October 2026.
What it means for buyers, sellers and salespersons
For a buyer, the release says less about any one home than the headline suggests. The index is an average across the market, and in this quarter it was pulled up by the kind of homes that sold. A buyer in the Core Central Region is looking at a segment that the flash estimate shows as flat to slightly lower; a buyer in the suburbs is looking at the segment that rose most. Neither figure is a valuation, and both are preliminary.
Related readNAB now expects Australian capital-city home prices to fall 8% in 2026For a seller, the split between prices and volume is the point to hold on to. A rising index in a quarter with far fewer transactions does not describe a market in which every home finds its buyer quickly. The count of deals for the year so far is about a fifth below the same period of 2025.
For salespersons and the agencies behind them, volume is the figure that touches daily work, since it is the number of transactions there are to handle. The third quarter gave them fewer, in new launches above all. Huttons' estimate of about 1,100 new homes sold in three months is the measure of that.
What comes next
Three things are already on the calendar or announced by the sources.
The first is the full set of real estate statistics for the third quarter, which the URA will release on 23 October 2026. It will replace the flash estimate with the final index, covering the whole quarter, and give the final count of transactions.
The second is the launch programme of the fourth quarter. EdgeProp lists three projects for the last three months of the year, about 2,000 homes in all: Thomson Reserve, with 1,268 units and prices expected above S$2,600 per square foot, Lucerne Grand with 570 units and The Serra with 133. That is close to double the number of units launched in the third quarter by Huttons' estimate.
The third is what the researchers expect, and here they speak of expectations, not of facts. "The final quarter of 2026 will likely see a noticeable surge in transactions," Christine Sun told EdgeProp. On prices, Mohan Sandrasegeran, head of research and data analytics at SRI, was more reserved: "We expect price growth to remain relatively measured in the final quarter," he said to the same outlet. SRI expects private home prices to rise by 3% to 3.5% over 2026 as a whole, after 3.3% in 2025, EdgeProp reports.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
