Financing a resale purchase

Researched and written 2026-09-29 15:22 SGT · 11 sources listed at the end · draft 1 · figures verified against the named sources on the date shown; where a source has since moved, the element carries a marker.

You have found a resale private home, a condominium or a landed house that someone already lives in or has lived in, and you want to know two things before you make an offer: how much a bank will lend you, and at what rate. This page answers both, in that order of importance, because the amount decides whether you can buy and the rate only decides what it costs you. It also covers the things that sit around the loan and change the number: the bank's valuation, stamp duties, your citizenship status, and how long you stay exposed. Figures are dated. Where I could not read a government page this run, I say so at the end and rely on the ledger's earlier reads.

The short answer

• For a first housing loan the ceiling is 75% of the lower of price and valuation, with at least 5% of the price in cash. If you already have one housing loan outstanding, including an HDB loan, the ceiling drops to 45% and at least 25% must be cash.
• The bank will not lend you more than the point where all your monthly debt payments, tested at a floor of 4%, exceed 55% of your gross monthly income. That test, not the LTV, is what limits most buyers.
• As of 4 September 2026 the lowest advertised rates on a completed private home are 1.40% fixed for two years and 1.39% floating (3M SORA plus 0.20%). A second source published in June 2026 puts a typical floating all-in rate at 1.9 to 2.3%. Ask for the bank's actual quote.
• The bank values the home itself, and lends on the lower of valuation and price. If you pay more than the valuation, the difference comes out of your cash, not CPF and not the loan. That is the valuation gap, and it is the single largest surprise on a resale purchase.
• MSR, the 30% cap that applies to HDB flats and ECs in their MOP, does not apply to a private resale home.

The mechanics: what a resale purchase loan actually is

On a resale purchase there is one seller, one property that already exists, and one bank loan that is paid out in a single amount on completion. That is the difference from a new launch, where the developer is paid in stages and the bank disburses progressively (see /borrow/new-launch). On a resale, nothing is disbursed until the keys change hands, so the loan is a plain amortising mortgage from day one and you pay interest on the whole balance from the start.

The sequence is short. You get an in-principle approval from a bank or through a broker, so you know your ceiling before you offer. You pay the seller an option fee to hold the home; the ledger records market practice at 1% of the price, with a further 4% on exercise, bringing the deposit to 5%, and an option validity of 14 days that can stretch to 21 in a slow market. On exercise, you apply formally for the loan. The bank then orders its valuation. Completion follows about 8 to 12 weeks from exercise. The loan is drawn, the seller is paid, the seller's outstanding loan is redeemed, and the property transfers to you.

Three numbers govern what you can borrow, and they are three separate tests. Loan-to-value (LTV) is a cap on the loan as a share of the lower of price and valuation. The Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) is a cap on your monthly debt payments as a share of your income. Tenure is a cap on how long the loan can run. A loan must clear all three; the tightest one binds. MAS's page Loan Tenure and Loan-to-Value Limits sets the LTV and tenure limits for loans where the Option to Purchase was granted on or after 6 July 2018, and MAS's page Calculating TDSR for Property Loans (guidelines last updated 15 December 2021) sets the income test.

Eligibility: who can borrow, and against what

Most of eligibility is arithmetic rather than permission. A bank lends if your income, age, existing debts and the property itself pass its tests. Age matters because MAS attaches the lower LTV to the loan period: on the MAS page read this run, the lower limit applies if the tenure exceeds 30 years or the loan runs beyond the borrower's age of 65. The lower tier is 55% rather than 75% for a first loan. In practice that means a 45-year-old asking for 25 years is asking for a loan that ends at 70, and gets the 55% tier, unless the term is shortened to end by 65. Maximum private tenure is 35 years, against 30 for HDB flats.

If you are buying jointly, the bank tests the combined income and the combined debts. Age for the tenure test is commonly blended using the income-weighted average age (IWAA): the ledger records the formula as each borrower's income times age, summed, divided by total income. I have not read a bank's own policy on how it applies IWAA, so treat that as the formula rather than a guarantee of how your bank will use it.

The property also has to qualify. On a leasehold home, CPF requires that the lease covers the youngest CPF-using owner to at least age 95 for you to use the full CPF amount; a shorter lease reduces the amount. Banks have their own lease-related limits; I have only sourced the CPF side. Leasehold condos typically transact 10 to 20% below comparable freehold, and the leasehold value curve is steeper the older the lease, so a short lease is a financing question and a resale question at once.

If you own an HDB flat today and are upgrading, two rules bite before the bank does. HDB has conditions on acquiring private residential property while you hold a flat, and a flat owner who has committed to buy a completed home can arrange a temporary extension of stay in the flat. And the HDB loan you still owe counts as a housing loan, so the bank treats your private purchase as a second loan at 45% LTV with 25% cash, not a first loan at 75%. See /realty/buy/upgrading for the sequence and /borrow/hdb for the loan you are leaving.

Citizenship status: SC, PR, foreigner, and the five FTA nationalities

Citizenship changes the price of the purchase far more than it changes the loan. The bank's LTV rules apply to individuals regardless of status. What changes is Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD), whether CPF is available, and in practice how conservative the bank is. The tax figures below are the ledger's earlier reads of IRAS; the IRAS ABSD page rendered as navigation only when I fetched it on 28 September 2026.

Singapore Citizen. First residential property: 0% ABSD. Second: 20%. Third and beyond: 30%. On a S$1.8 million home bought as a second property that is S$360,000 of ABSD, on my arithmetic, before BSD and before any refund. A citizen who buys a second home and sells the first within the window can recover it; the ledger records six months, with conditions for married couples. Missing the deadline forfeits the remission and there is no extension.

Singapore Permanent Resident. First property: 5%. Second: 30%. Third and beyond: 35%. On the same S$1.8 million home a PR buying a first property pays S$90,000 of ABSD, on my arithmetic. ICA assesses PR applications on family ties, economic contribution and similar factors and does not treat owning property as a criterion, so buying a home does not help a PR application.

Foreigner. 60% ABSD on any residential purchase. On S$1.8 million that is S$1,080,000, on my arithmetic, and it is on top of BSD. A foreigner can buy a condominium unit without approval, but landed homes and vacant residential land need Singapore Land Authority approval, and Sentosa Cove is the one enclave where a foreigner may buy landed property as reported. CPF is not available, so the whole downpayment is cash. Banks in practice offer 60 to 70% LTV to foreign borrowers depending on income source, and discount foreign-currency and variable income before applying TDSR. Those are practice, reported by PropertyNet.SG and Nexus Mortgage, not MAS limits.

US, Swiss, Liechtenstein, Norwegian and Icelandic nationals. These five are taxed as citizens for ABSD, by remission rather than by a different rate: the treatment is obtained through an application on the IRAS myTax Portal. It attaches to nationality, so a US green-card holder who is not a US national does not qualify, and a US citizen who is also a Singapore PR is charged at the PR rate. A trust with a US citizen beneficiary can obtain the full remission of the 65% trust rate. Entities pay 65%. Apply for the remission; do not assume it is applied at completion. Note that the FTA treatment removes the ABSD gap but not the CPF gap: a US national who is not a PR still cannot use CPF.

Taxes: BSD, ABSD, SSD, property tax and rental income

Buyer's Stamp Duty is charged in bands on the higher of price and market value. The residential bands are in the ledger from IRAS: 1% on the first S$180,000, 2% on the next S$180,000, 3% on the next S$640,000, 4% on the next S$500,000, 5% on the next S$1.5 million, and a higher band above S$3 million. On a S$1.8 million home that is S$59,600 on my arithmetic (S$1,800 plus S$3,600 plus S$19,200 plus S$20,000 plus S$15,000); the ledger's IRAS example at S$2 million is S$69,600. BSD is on the price you pay, not the valuation, so a price above valuation is dutiable on the whole price. The IRAS BSD page rendered navigation only when I fetched it on 28 September 2026.

Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) is a cost of leaving early, and you should price it in at the moment you buy. Since 4 July 2025 the holding period is four years, with SSD at 16% in the first year, 12% in the second, 8% in the third, 4% in the fourth, and nothing after. It is payable within 14 days of the executed sale contract. An inherited property carries its own counting rule: the holding period runs from the deceased's date of acquisition, not the heir's, so if it has already run by the date of sale, no SSD is payable.

Property tax is annual and depends on whether you live in the home. The owner-occupier rates apply to only one property you own, and a home you rent out or leave vacant is taxed at the non-owner-occupier residential rates (12% on the first S$30,000 of Annual Value, rising through 20% and 28% to 36% above S$60,000). Vacant property gets no relief. If you buy a resale home as an investment, that difference is a real annual cost.

Rental income is taxable, and it counts toward your borrowing power only after a haircut. Gains on a sale are generally not taxable unless IRAS treats you as trading. If you rent the home out, IRAS lets you claim either actual expenses or a deemed 15% of gross rent, and the choice must be consistent across your tenanted residential properties. Mortgage interest on the loan for a rented-out property is deductible. Rental losses cannot be carried forward or set against other income, though as an administrative concession one property's rental loss may be set against another property's taxable rental income in the same year, if all are let at market rates. Non-resident individuals pay a flat 24% on rental income. Renovation of a rented home is generally capital, not a deduction.

Borrowing: LTV, TDSR, MSR, HDB versus bank, floating versus fixed

LTV and cash

MAS sets the LTV by how many housing loans you already have. With none, 75% (or 55% if the tenure is over 30 years or the loan runs past age 65), with at least 5% of the price in cash at 75% and 10% at 55%. With one, 45% (or 25%) and at least 25% cash. With two or more, 35% (or 15%) and at least 25% cash. Non-individual borrowers get 15%. The rest of the price beyond the loan and the cash minimum can be CPF for a citizen or PR, up to the valuation limit and the withdrawal limit. CPF Board's page How much CPF savings you can use for your home purchase (last updated 26 May 2026) defines the valuation limit as the lower of price and valuation, and lets you go on to 120% of that once your Basic Retirement Sum is set aside. CPF you use must be refunded with accrued interest of 2.5% a year when you sell.

The valuation gap, with numbers

The bank does not lend on your price. It lends on the lower of the price and its own valuation. Winfred Quek Law Corporation's guide (last reviewed May 2026) explains that the bank appoints a valuer from its own panel and you cannot choose the valuer; the valuer pulls three to five recent comparable transactions from the same development and adjusts for floor, facing, condition and lease. The valuation comes after your loan application, not at in-principle approval. So the number that decides your cash requirement arrives after you have already paid the option fee.

PropertyNet.SG's worked example (26 September 2026) shows the effect on a first-time citizen buyer at 75% LTV. At S$1.9 million valued at S$1.9 million the loan is S$1,425,000 and the minimum cash is S$95,000. At S$2.0 million valued at S$1.88 million the loan is S$1,410,000 and minimum cash rises to S$214,000. The S$120,000 gap is 6% of the price, and it more than doubles the cash a buyer must find. The method is: minimum cash is 5% of the lower figure plus the gap.

My own arithmetic on the same method, for a S$1.8 million home valued at S$1.72 million: the loan is 75% of S$1.72 million, S$1,290,000; you fund S$510,000; and the minimum cash is 5% of S$1.72 million (S$86,000) plus the S$80,000 gap, which is S$166,000. Had the valuation matched the price, the loan would have been S$1,350,000 and the minimum cash S$90,000. The gap cannot go on the loan and cannot come from CPF: the ledger and both sources agree that the amount above valuation is cash. If you cannot fund it, the options are to renegotiate the price, walk, or ask the seller to accept the valuation. Winfred Quek reports independent pre-offer valuations at S$300 to 600, which is cheap against a gap of S$80,000.

TDSR, and what it does to the amount

TDSR is your total monthly debt payments divided by your gross monthly income, capped at 55%. MAS's page states that for residential loans the bank tests the payment at the higher of a 4% floor or the thereafter rate, so at today's advertised rates of about 1.4% the test is run at 4%, not 1.4%. Variable income such as bonus and commission, and rental income, are counted with a minimum 30% haircut, and rental income also needs a stamped tenancy agreement with at least six months remaining. PropKaki's guide (June 2026) says banks stress at today's rate plus three points instead; that is a different claim from the MAS page and I cannot reconcile them from what I read. An individual bank may apply a stricter test than MAS requires.

What that does to the amount, on my arithmetic for a S$1,350,000 loan (75% of S$1.8 million) over 25 years. The real monthly payment at 1.40% is about S$5,336. At 2.0% it is S$5,722; at 3.0% it is S$6,402. But the bank tests at 4%, where the payment is S$7,126, and to keep that at or under 55% of income with no other debt you need a gross monthly income of about S$12,956. At the real rate of 1.40% you would be paying well under that, but the ceiling is set by the test rate. If you have a car loan or a card balance, the income you need goes up by the debt divided by 0.55. The practical reading: a household earning S$10,000 a month in fixed salary cannot borrow S$1.35 million, whatever the advertised rate is.

MSR, and HDB versus bank

MSR, the 30% Mortgage Servicing Ratio, applies to HDB flats and ECs within their MOP only; it does not apply to a private resale home. The HDB concessionary loan is a loan for HDB flats. You cannot use it to buy a private home, so 'HDB versus bank' is not a choice on this page: for a private resale the lender is a bank or licensed financial institution. It matters only to people upgrading, in two ways. Your outstanding HDB loan counts toward the LTV tier on the new loan. And if you keep the flat, the HDB loan can be refinanced to a bank at any time, but a bank loan cannot be refinanced back to HDB. See /borrow/hdb.

Floating or fixed, by phase

On a resale purchase there is no construction phase and no progressive drawdown, so the phases are: before completion, the lock-in, the repricing window, and long-term ownership. The rates below are from PropertyNet.SG's mortgage rate summary dated 4 September 2026, an aggregator, not a bank rate sheet.

• Before completion (option to keys, roughly 8 to 12 weeks): your loan is approved but not yet drawn. Between exercise and completion the risk is not the rate, it is the valuation and whether you still qualify. Keep your income and debts unchanged; a new car loan in this window can break a TDSR pass.
• Lock-in, years 1 to 3: the lowest fixed rate on a completed private home is 1.40% for two years (HSBC and Citi), and the lowest floating rate is 1.39% (Maybank, 3M SORA plus 0.20%), where 3M compounded SORA stood at 1.19% and 1-month at 1.30%. The two are 0.01 points apart. When fixed and floating are that close, the fixed rate costs you almost nothing for certainty during the years you can least afford a surprise. Fixed rates revert to a prevailing floating rate after the lock-in.
• The exit cost is real: CPF Board's page HDB loan or bank loan? 3 differences you should know (12 June 2026) says most bank loans have a 1 to 3 year lock-in with a penalty of about 1.5% of the outstanding loan. On S$1,350,000 that is S$20,250, on my arithmetic. A legal subsidy is typically clawed back if you leave within three years.
• Repricing window, at the end of lock-in: repricing with the same bank costs about S$300 to 800 in admin with no legal or valuation fee; refinancing to another bank costs legal of S$2,000 to 3,000 and valuation of S$200 to 500, often subsidised. Repricing takes about 4 to 5 weeks; refinancing needs 2 to 3 months' notice. See /borrow/refinancing.
• Long-term: floating rates reprice quarterly against SORA. A forecast range of 1.0 to 1.4% through end-2026 is quoted by PropertyNet.SG; treat that as one aggregator's view. A 1-point move on S$1.35 million is roughly S$13,500 a year of interest at the start.

The two sources on the level of rates do not agree, and you should hold that uncertainty. PropertyNet.SG lists 1.39% floating (September 2026). PropKaki's June 2026 guide says typical floating loans price at 0.8 to 1.2% over SORA for an all-in 1.9 to 2.3%. The lowest advertised rate in a table is usually for a large loan on a favoured product; the rate you are quoted depends on the loan size, the property, and the bank's appetite that month. Because fixed rates revert to a floating rate after the lock-in, the rate you will accept in year three matters as much as the one you sign for today.

My recommendation on the evidence: if you can pass TDSR at 4% with room, take whichever package is cheaper over the lock-in, and if fixed and floating are within about 0.1 point of each other, prefer the fixed one. If you are near the TDSR line, the stress test has already assumed the worst, so the fixed rate's advantage is behavioural, not arithmetic. If you may sell within four years, the SSD schedule is a larger number than any rate difference: on a S$1.8 million sale in year three the SSD at 8% is S$144,000, on my arithmetic, against a total rate difference of a few thousand dollars.

Renovation, A&A and rebuild

The bank lends on the property as it stands. It will not fund a renovation from the mortgage, and the valuer does not credit your plans. Renovation is paid from cash or a renovation loan, which the ledger records at a maximum of S$30,000 (reported cap of six times monthly income or S$30,000). Reported condominium renovation costs run from S$24,800 to 71,100 for a 2-bedroom, so a mid-range renovation on a resale condo can exceed the renovation loan by a wide margin. Budget a contingency of 10 to 20%. A condominium's management corporation (MCST) also usually takes a refundable renovation deposit; the two guides in the ledger disagree on the size, S$2,000 to 5,000 in one and S$500 to 1,000 in the other, so ask your MCST.

Additions, alterations and rebuild are not relevant to a condominium unit, which is strata title: you own the interior, not the structure or the land, so there is nothing to extend or rebuild. They are relevant to landed resale. There the valuer values the land first and treats the building as a depreciated asset, which means an old house on good land is valued on the land, and a rebuild loan is a separate product with a lower LTV, about 55% on land in one adviser's reading. For a landed purchase see /realty/buy/landed, /realty/rebuild/a-and-a-vs-rebuild, and /realty/rebuild/renovation.

Conveyancing

A condominium resale is conveyed by a solicitor. The ledger records a professional fee of S$2,300 to 3,200 plus 9% GST and disbursements. The steps are: the seller grants the option; you pay the option fee; you exercise within the option period; your solicitor and the seller's solicitor exchange the documents and search the title; the bank's valuation and letter of offer come in; the sale is stamped (the ledger records that it must be stamped within 14 days of signing if signed in Singapore); and on completion the bank pays the seller, the seller's own loan is redeemed, and the property transfers. Read the option before you sign it, and have your solicitor read it before you exercise: the option period is short and the valuation arrives after you have paid.

Two things are different on a resale from a new launch. There is no developer's defects liability period, so what you inspect is what you get: an independent condition check before you exercise is worth its cost. And a caveat can be lodged on a private property to protect a buyer's interest; see /property/archive/private-property-caveats. If you are replacing a home sold in an en-bloc, the second-property trap applies: the outstanding mortgage and CPF accrued interest are settled from the sale proceeds, and the timing rules for ABSD matter. See /realty/buy/rehousing-after-en-bloc.

Estate: what happens to the home and the loan

The loan does not disappear when you die; it sits with the surviving borrower or the estate. I have not sourced how banks treat a death under a mortgage and I will not guess. What I can source is the property and the CPF side. CPF savings are not covered by a will and do not form part of the estate; they pass by CPF nomination or, with none, via the Public Trustee's Office under intestacy rules, on a track entirely separate from the property. The refund obligation on CPF used for property is waived automatically on death. Marriage revokes an existing CPF nomination automatically.

How you hold the title decides what happens next. A property held in joint tenancy passes automatically and in full to the survivor, and surviving owners must lodge a Notice of Death with the Singapore Land Authority. A property held as tenants in common passes by will, or under the intestacy rules if there is no will, and probate or a grant is needed before it can be sold or transferred. Estate duty was abolished for deaths on or after 15 February 2008. No BSD is payable on the transfer of a deceased's property by assent, and ABSD is not payable on inheritance; but an inherited property counts as a property you own when you next buy. Whether the mortgage-reducing insurance in the ledger applies to a private bank loan is not something I have sourced; ask your insurer. See /estate, /estate/wills and /estate/probate.

How to think about this: the twelve questions

Two questions decide what kind of position a resale purchase puts you in, and neither is "are you buying to invest or to stay" — nobody buys a home believing it will fall, so that question sorts nobody. Q1: are you borrowing to buy? On a resale purchase financed at 75% LTV, yes, by construction — this page is written for that case. Q2: once you hold it, are you lending it out, meaning renting it to someone else? That is a choice you make after you own it, not before, and it can change later. The two answers cross into four positions. Cash, own-use: you pay outright and live in it — pure exposure to price, no carry, no lender in the room. Cash, let-out: you pay outright and rent it out — pure yield, positive carry by construction because there is no loan to service. Borrow, own-use: you carry a loan and collect no rent to offset it — negative carry by construction, and it is where most owner-occupied resale buyers sit, though few say it plainly. Borrow, let-out: you carry a loan and collect rent — the spread between the rent and the interest is the whole game, and on this page's own numbers (about 3.4% gross yield against a 1.4-2.3% loan rate) that spread is thin once tax, MCST fees and vacancy are counted.

• C0 The play. Borrow, own-use is a balance-sheet play, not a cash-flow play: you are not trying to make the home pay you each month, you are trying to own more house than your cash alone allows, and betting the balance sheet strengthens over the years you hold it. Borrow, let-out is closer to a cash-flow play, and you should be able to say the month it turns cash-flow positive.
• C1 Balance sheet. What you own moves by the price or valuation, whichever is lower; what you owe moves by the loan, roughly 75% of that figure. On a S$1.8 million purchase you hold an asset of S$1.8 million and a liability of S$1,350,000; your net worth moves by the S$450,000 you put in, not by the price, until the market moves.
• C2 Cash flow. What moves, and when. Out: the downpayment, BSD of S$59,600 on the S$1.8 million example, legal fees of roughly S$3,000, any gap above valuation, and the mortgage payment every month thereafter. In: nothing, unless you let it out. The funding gap sits at completion, 8 to 12 weeks after exercise, when the loan is drawn and any valuation shortfall has to be found in cash on top of the minimum.
• C3 P&L. Not the same as cash flow. Interest is a cost against your income whether or not you rent the home out. If you let it out, rent is income and the interest is deductible against it. If you occupy it, there is no income statement at all — only the balance sheet moving and the cash leaving your account.
• C4 Carry. Income minus financing cost. On own-use, carry is negative by construction: the full interest cost, zero rental income. Over 25 years at a constant 2.0% that is about S$366,600 on the S$1.35 million loan; at a constant 3.0% about S$570,600 — illustrations, since the rate will not stay constant. On let-out, carry is rent minus interest minus non-owner property tax minus MCST fees minus a vacancy allowance, and at a 3.4% gross yield against a 1.4-2.3% loan rate it is thin before those deductions are even taken out.
• C5 Give / get. You give the cash and CPF downpayment, BSD, legal fees, any valuation gap, ABSD if you are not a first-time citizen, and interest for as long as the loan runs — about S$513,000 of up-front outlay on the S$1.8 million example before renovation. You get a home whose price and rent you do not control: URA's flash estimate has the private price index up 0.5% quarter on quarter in 2Q 2026, with private non-landed resale transactions at 2,634 that quarter, and the private rental index up 0.7% with gross condo yields averaging 3.36% and completed private vacancy at 6.4%.
• C6 Exposed to. The bank's rate, which reprices quarterly if floating; the market price, for as long as you own; the valuation gap, found out in cash at exercise; lease decay if the home is leasehold; and your own income and debts if you need to refinance later.
• C7 For how long. Loan tenure up to 35 years is the horizon over which you carry rate exposure. Inside that, two shorter windows make leaving expensive: the four-year SSD schedule and the one-to-three-year lock-in.
• C8 Failure cascade, in order. Negative carry (the interest cost, or rent falling short of it) hits cash flow (you cover the gap from salary or savings) and accumulates into P&L (a widening loss if the home is let out). If the market falls at the same time, that becomes negative equity (the loan exceeds the home's value), which becomes illiquidity (SSD and the lock-in penalty make selling expensive exactly when you need to sell), which becomes insolvency only if the debt is large relative to everything else you owe — a single resale home rarely gets a household there alone, but the order is always this order, never reversed.
• C9 Liquidity. How fast this becomes money again, and at what haircut. Selling takes the 8-to-12-week completion cycle at best, plus SSD if inside four years (16%, 12%, 8%, 4% by year), plus the lock-in penalty if inside three years (about 1.5% of the outstanding loan, S$20,250 on the example), plus agent commission of about 2%, typically paid by the seller. Turning it back into cash inside the first year can cost a fifth of the price.
• C10 Control. On a resale purchase you are close to a price-taker on the asset itself — you cannot change the building, and the bank's valuer does not credit your plans. Renovation and A&A are this page's expression of control: they let you change a unit's condition and, for landed homes, its structure, within what strata title or the land allows, but they do not move the number the bank will lend against.
• C11 The exit. Sell through an agent for about 2% commission, typically borne by the seller, pay SSD if inside four years, refund the CPF you used with 2.5% a year of accrued interest, and redeem the outstanding loan. The mechanics are fixed and calculable; the cost is the thing people underestimate.

The B2B spoke: mortgage brokers, valuers and conveyancers

The commercial audience for a resale-financing page is the intermediaries who sit between a buyer and a completed sale: mortgage brokers, panel valuers, conveyancing lawyers and, on the seller's side, the agent who needs the buyer's financing to close. Each has a product that a buyer reading this page might need at a specific point. A broker sells the comparison of rates and the in-principle approval before an offer. A valuer sells the pre-offer valuation, reported at S$300 to 600 by Winfred Quek Law Corporation. A conveyancer sells the completion, at the ledger's S$2,300 to 3,200 plus GST. None of these is a referral I invented; they are the points on the timeline where a buyer needs a third party.

The structure of the broker's incentive matters, and I have to be plain about what I have not sourced. A broker is commonly said to be paid by the lender, not by the buyer, which would mean the buyer does not see a fee but the broker does not work for the buyer alone. I have no sourced figure for what lenders pay brokers and I will not state one. What I can say from the ledger is that a legal subsidy is typically clawed back if you leave within three years, and that a broker who steers you to a package with a lock-in and a subsidy earns on the same loan that binds you for those years. The valuable non-fee product for a broker is the pre-offer check: run the buyer's TDSR at 4%, and run the valuation risk before the option fee is paid, not after. A buyer who learns of a S$120,000 gap after exercising has no leverage; one who learns before does.

The realtor economics: what the agent earns and where his incentive points

On a private resale the seller typically pays about 2% of the price, and the buyer's agent is paid by co-broke out of that commission, or directly by the buyer where agreed. On a S$1.8 million sale, 2% is S$36,000 in total, on my arithmetic; I do not have a sourced figure for how that is split between the two agents, and CEA says there are no fixed commission rates and no prescribed guidelines on commission. CEA also says an agent may not collect commission from more than one party in the same transaction, that you should make payment only to the agency and not to the individual agent, and that an estate agency agreement must be signed in the prescribed form before the agent acts. One market source puts median annual agent income at about S$72,000, with new agents earning S$10,000 to 40,000 in their first year. That is the number to hold against every piece of advice an agent gives you.

Where the incentive points. The agent is paid when the deal completes, and is paid a percentage of the price. Both push in the same direction: close, and close higher. The valuation gap is where that shows. An agent whose buyer faces a S$80,000 shortfall earns nothing if the buyer walks, so the agent's interest is to find the cash: to say the valuation will probably come in, to suggest the buyer top up from savings, or to ask the seller for a small discount. Each of those may be the right answer. None of them is neutral. A higher price also raises the commission, though on the seller's typical 2% commission the effect of S$20,000 on the price is S$400, which is small against the cost of losing the sale.

And against himself. An agent who tells you to get an in-principle approval before you view, to pay for an independent valuation before you exercise, or to walk away when the valuation is S$80,000 short, is advising you to delay or drop a deal from which he is paid only on completion. An agent who tells you a floating rate at 1.39% is not a reason to stretch to the limit of TDSR is telling you to buy a smaller home, which is a smaller commission. That advice is worth more than the commission it costs him, and you should be suspicious of an agent who never gives it.

What I could not verify this run

• IRAS pages on BSD, ABSD and SSD rendered navigation only when fetched on 28 September 2026, so those rates rest on the ledger's earlier reads of IRAS, not on a fresh read.
• The CEA commission page I tried returned a 404, so CEA figures also rest on the ledger.
• MAS page Loan Tenure and Loan-to-Value Limits and MAS page Calculating TDSR for Property Loans were read this run. MAS's MSR page was not opened.
• Rates, valuation examples and rate forecasts come from PropertyNet.SG, PropKaki and Winfred Quek, all commercial pages, the first of them an aggregator. They disagree with each other on the level of floating rates; I show both.
• I did not verify how banks treat a borrower's death under a mortgage, what lenders pay brokers, how a co-broke commission is split, or how a particular bank applies IWAA or the lease-based limits.
• What CPF Board says about the amount of CPF for a private property was read this run; its treatment of accrued interest for private property was not on the page returned, so that figure rests on the ledger.

Where to go next

Sources

• MAS — Loan Tenure and Loan-to-Value Limits (limits for OTPs granted on or after 6 July 2018) (2018-07-06) · https://www.mas.gov.sg/regulation/explainers/new-housing-loans/loan-tenure-and-loan-to-value-limits
• MAS — Calculating TDSR for Property Loans (published 5 July 2018; guidelines last updated 15 December 2021) (2021-12-15) · https://www.mas.gov.sg/regulation/explainers/tdsr-for-property-loans/calculating-tdsr
• CPF Board — How much CPF savings you can use for your home purchase (published 4 August 2025; last updated 26 May 2026) (2026-05-26) · https://www.cpf.gov.sg/member/infohub/educational-resources/how-much-cpf-savings-you-can-use-for-your-home-purchase
• CPF Board — HDB loan or bank loan? 3 differences you should know (2026-06-12) · https://www.cpf.gov.sg/member/infohub/educational-resources/3-differences-between-hdb-loan-and-bank-loan
• IRAS — Buyer's Stamp Duty (BSD) (page rendered navigation only on 28 September 2026; rates from ledger) (2026-09-28) · https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/stamp-duty/for-property/buying-or-acquiring-property/buyer's-stamp-duty-(bsd)
• IRAS — Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD) (page rendered navigation only on 28 September 2026; rates from ledger) (2026-09-28) · https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/stamp-duty/for-property/buying-or-acquiring-property/additional-buyer's-stamp-duty-(absd)
• IRAS — Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) for Residential Property (page rendered navigation only on 28 September 2026; rates from ledger) (2026-09-28) · https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/stamp-duty/for-property/selling-or-disposing-property/seller's-stamp-duty-(ssd)-for-residential-property
• PropertyNet.SG — Singapore Mortgage Rates from 1.39% p.a. (September 2026) (2026-09-04) · https://propertynet.sg/latest-bank-mortgage-loan-rates-across-singapore/
• PropertyNet.SG — Stalled Condo Listing Singapore: How a Bank Valuation Gap Kept a $1.9M Unit Unsold for 5 Months (2026-09-26) · https://propertynet.sg/stalled-condo-listing-singapore-bank-valuation-gap-1-9m-unit-5-months-2026/
• PropKaki — Singapore Home Loan Guide 2026: SORA, TDSR and HDB vs Bank Loan Explained (2026-06-01) · https://propkaki.sg/guides/singapore-home-loan-guide
• Winfred Quek Law Corporation — Property Valuation Singapore 2026: How Bank Valuations Work (last reviewed May 2026) (2026-05-01) · https://winfredquek.com/insights/property-valuation-singapore-guide