Why new-launch psf looks higher since 2023: floor-area harmonisation, explained

What changed on 1 June 2023

For years the four agencies that measure a building each measured it differently. URA counted gross floor area for planning, SLA counted strata area for the title, BCA and SCDF had their own definitions, and a developer reconciled them on every submission. In September 2022 URA issued a circular, in consultation with SLA, BCA and SCDF, harmonising the definitions, and it took effect for development applications submitted on or after 1 June 2023.

Three things in it matter to a buyer. All strata area is now gross floor area: whatever is sold to you as part of your unit counts against the site's development intensity. All voids are excluded from strata area. And every agency now measures to the middle of the wall. Projects approved under the old rules before that date, and amendments to them, stay on the old definitions, which is why the market will carry both kinds of unit side by side for years.

The consequence that reached the showflat came from the first of those. An air-conditioner ledge that is included in a unit's strata area is now computed as GFA, which means it eats into what the developer may build and sell. So developers stopped including it. The ledge is still there, outside your window, holding your compressor; it is simply no longer part of the area on your title, and no longer part of the area you are charged for.

Why the psf went up and the price did not

Before the change, a unit sold as 1,000 square feet might have comprised 950 square feet you could stand in and 50 square feet of ledge you could not. The price was quoted over all 1,000. After the change, the same layout is sold as 950 square feet, at the same total price, and the price per square foot rises by exactly the share the ledge used to take. The quantum is unchanged. The home is unchanged. The number on the brochure is larger because the number under it is smaller.

This is why a 2026 new launch beside a 2019 project can show a psf several hundred dollars higher while the two-bedders cost about the same to buy, and why a resale unit from the old regime can look cheaper per square foot than it is. Any comparison across the 2023 line that uses the printed psf without adjusting for it is comparing two different rulers.

The honest size of a home has always been the space inside the walls. Harmonisation moved the market closer to quoting that, at the cost of making a decade of psf history harder to read.

How to compare fairly

Ask for the strata plan, not the brochure. It shows what is inside the title and what is not, and for an older project it shows the ledge, the planter and any void that was counted. Take the price, divide it by the area you can actually use, and you have a psf you can set against a new launch without the ruler getting in the way. For a new launch the two numbers are close to the same thing, which is the point of the rule.

Compare quantum for the same layout before you compare psf at all. Two-bedders of the same real size at the same price are the same deal, whatever their psf says; a lower psf on a larger titled area may be buying you a ledge.

Read transaction records with the date in mind. Roov's market page reports psf exactly as URA records it, so projects approved after mid-2023 read higher per square foot than their older neighbours partly for this reason, before any real difference in value. The by-floor table on a project card is the cleanest like-for-like, because every unit in one project sits on one ruler.

Balconies, bonus area and the land price

Balconies were not the subject of the change and still count as strata area. What did not change is the balcony allowance: a developer may still build balcony space above the plot ratio, up to 7% of the site's allowable floor area under URA's rules, and that is why an agent's land price is often quoted after adding it. The land-bids guide sets out how a headline psf per plot ratio and the with-bonus figure relate.

For anyone reading a land sale, harmonisation changed one input in the arithmetic: how much of a site's floor area ends up as saleable strata area. Roov's launch-price engine assumes 95% of the floor area is sold under the harmonised rules, higher than the share that applied when ledges and other unsaleable space were carved out of the count. The land price is the same; the number of square feet it has to be recovered over is larger; the implied launch psf is correspondingly lower than the old assumption would have produced.

What to do with this

If you are buying a new launch, the psf on the price list is closer to the truth than it used to be, and comparing it with a resale unit from before 2023 needs the resale unit's price re-based on usable area. If you are selling an older unit, quote both numbers, because a buyer comparing you with a launch on the printed psf alone will underrate you. If you are valuing anything across the line, do it on quantum and layout first and psf second; the stamp duty on the purchase is charged on the price, and is the same whichever ruler was used.

None of this makes a launch cheap or a resale unit dear. It removes one systematic reason the two can look further apart than they are, so that the real difference, which is what you should be paying for, is the only difference left.

Common questions

What is GFA harmonisation?

A change to how floor area is defined across URA, SLA, BCA and SCDF, set out in a URA circular of September 2022 and in force for applications submitted from 1 June 2023. All strata area now counts as gross floor area, voids are excluded from strata area, and every agency measures to the middle of the wall.

Why does a new launch show a higher psf than the condo next door?

Partly because the area it is priced over no longer includes the air-conditioner ledge and similar unsaleable space that older projects counted in the title. The same home reads smaller, so the same price reads as a higher psf. Only the difference left after re-basing the older unit on usable area is real.

Did harmonisation make homes more expensive?

No. It changed the area a price is quoted over, not the price. A unit that would have sold for a given sum before the rule sells for the same sum after it, over a smaller titled area.

Are older projects affected?

Not retroactively. Projects approved before 1 June 2023, and amendments to those approvals, stay on the old definitions. That is why the market carries both kinds of unit at once, and why comparisons across the date need care.

Do balconies still count?

Yes. Balconies remain strata area and the balcony allowance above the plot ratio continues, which is why land prices are often quoted with it added. Voids no longer count as strata area.