Flight to safety: New citizens and PRs drive Singapore luxury home sales as broader market cools

[SINGAPORE] Sales of luxury homes climbed to a four-year high in the first half of 2026, bucking a slowdown in the broader private residential market.

Market watchers say sales in the upper tiers of the market, transacted at S$5 million and above, are being driven by wealthy investors seeking prime assets as safe havens amid global macroeconomic uncertainty, as well as growing interest from new Singapore citizens and permanent residents.

According to Realion (OrangeTee & ETC) Research, luxury home transactions in the prime Core Central Region (CCR) continued to gather pace in H1 2026, with 353 landed and non-landed homes priced at S$5 million or more being sold.

The tally, which excludes bulk transactions involving more than one unit, was up 24.7 per cent from 283 transactions in the year-ago period and 54.8 per cent higher than the 228 units recorded in H1 2024.

Knight Frank Singapore’s analysis showed that in H1 2026, sales of large prime non-landed homes totalled 128 with a combined sales value of S$1.1 billion.

“While this was eight transactions less than H2 2025, the average unit price increased 8.3 per cent to S$2,689 psf (per square foot),” Knight Frank’s report noted.

The firm looked at sales of apartments of at least 2,500 square feet (sq ft) in size and located in Districts 1, 2, 4, 9, 10 and 11 – prime areas such as the Central Business District (CBD), Orchard Road, Sentosa, Bukit Timah and Thomson.

“Singapore’s safe-haven status promoted certainty among those granted citizenship and permanent residencies, as some upgraded from tenancies to home ownership,” said Nicholas Keong, head of residential and private office at Knight Frank Singapore.

Agents are also seeing more enquiries from Singapore citizens and PRs overseas seeking to acquire Singapore properties to preserve capital, Keong added.

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The rise in interest comes amid a softening in the broader private residential market, with overall private home sales (excluding executive condominiums) declining 12 per cent to 10,909 units in H1 2026 from 12,328 units in H1 2025.

A similar divergence played out in prices – government flash estimates released on Jul 1 showed that while overall residential prices rose by 0.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, CCR condominiums gained 2 per cent, even as prices dropped 1.4 per cent in the Rest of Central Region (RCR) and slipped 0.2 per cent in the Outside Central Region suburbs.

Sales of new luxury homes priced at S$5 million and up rose with more new CCR projects launched, with new sales in that price segment rising 78 per cent to 73 units in H1 2026, from 41 units in the same period last year.

The resale market grew at a slower pace, with transactions up 15.9 per cent to 277 units from 239 units.

Quarter on quarter, CCR sales transacted at or over the S$5 million benchmark fell to 162 transactions in Q2 2026, from 191 transactions in Q1. However, the Q2 showing is still seen as strong, as volume stayed above the past three-year quarterly average of 137 units, said Realion.

The agency further observed that Q1 2026 transactions hit a 14-quarter high during the onset of war in the Middle East.

Among condos with sales crossing into the S$5 million range, new District 9 launch River Modern chalked up the highest sales, with 44 units sold in that price range in H1.

Buyers were also picking up units at The Draycott (11 units sold at between S$5.4 million and S$7.1 million), Goodwood Residence (eight units transacted between S$5.1 million and S$8.8 million) and Leedon Residence (nine units sold between S$5.9 million and S$16.3 million).

Huttons Asia CEO Mark Yip noted that demand for new private homes in the CCR on the whole had rebounded sharply in 2025, “even as foreign buyer participation fell to historic lows following the April 2023 cooling measures”, with pricing emerging as a new catalyst.

On average, foreigners accounted for a significant 17 per cent of new home purchases between 2015 to 2022, according to Huttons’ research.

This dived to 10.7 per cent in 2024, after the government raised additional buyers’ stamp duty on foreigners’ purchases to 60 per cent in April 2023, and fell further to 4.7 per cent in 2026 to date.

Despite the withdrawal of foreign buying, new CCR condo sales jumped five times to 1,916 in 2025 from 378 units in 2024.

“This suggests that the CCR market may be undergoing a structural shift, with local buyers increasingly filling the gap left by foreign purchasers,” said Lee Sze Teck, Huttons Asia senior director of data analytics.

With the median price gap between CCR and RCR homes shrinking to just 10.1 per cent in 2025 – and nearly halving from 21.5 per cent in 2024, the prime segment has essentially become “a more accessible upgrade option for Singaporean buyers”, he said.

At the same time, a different demographic of buyers may be “right-sizing”, with private property owners “adjusting their housing choices based on lifestyle needs, location preferences and cost considerations”, Lee added.

Meanwhile, in the ultra-luxury segment of condos priced at S$10 million and higher, sales jumped to a 15-quarter high in Q2 2026, according to Realion data.

Some 23 units changed hands, excluding bulk deals involving more than one unit. This exceeded the 16 units sold in Q1 2026 and 14 units in Q2 2025.

Of these, six were new sales while the other 17 were resales. The new sales included two units each at 21 Anderson and Skywaters Residences, and one each at 32 Gilstead and Park Nova.

In the first half of the year, the top prime non-landed deal was a 6,232-sq-ft unit at The Marq on Paterson Hill, Knight Frank data showed. The unit went for S$37 million or S$5,937 psf in January.

Other big-ticket deals included a unit at Seven Palms Sentosa Cove that sold for S$23.9 million, and a unit at Nassim Park Residences that fetched S$23 million.