Developers sold 731 new private homes (excluding ECs) in July — the strongest month since April, and more than four times June's 156 units. Before reading that as a hot market, note the shape of it: about 66% of those sales came from just two projects. This was a supply-led rebound, not a demand surge. Year-on-year, sales were actually down 22%.
The two lifters were Lentor Gardens Residences and Dunearn House. Lentor Gardens moved 270 of its 499 units at a median $2,357 psf — its precinct's seventh launch, and buyers still turned up, which tells you the mass-market appetite in Lentor is real. Dunearn House sold 212 of 380 units at a median $3,111 psf as the first private launch in the upcoming Bukit Timah Turf City precinct — and first launches in a new precinct tend to set the reference price for everything that follows. The next Dunearn Road land parcel was already awarded about 15% dearer than the Dunearn House plot, so the floor there is unlikely to drop.
The number that matters most for buyers: $2.5 million. Homes under that mark made up 58% of July's new non-landed sales — it remains the quantum sweet spot, and developers know it. At Dunearn House, roughly 4 in 10 July buyers got in under $2.5m, in units of 527–678 sqft: prime-district addresses made affordable by shrinking the floor plate, not the price per square foot.
That sweet spot is getting harder to hit. The share of new homes sold under $2.5m has slid from 72% in 2023 to about 62% so far this year, squeezed by land and construction costs. The $2.5m–$3m band is absorbing the difference. Practical translation: the same budget buys fewer square feet in each new launch cycle, and waiting has a price of its own.
Who's buying? Singaporeans — 87.5% of new non-landed sales in July, and even in the prime districts locals took 83% of units. Foreign buyers were down to a rounding error: seven CCR transactions all month. The 60% foreigner ABSD has effectively handed the prime districts back to local buyers, at prices tuned for them.
The financing backdrop is doing buyers a quiet favour. 3-month compounded SORA sat at about 1.13% in mid-August, lower than at the start of the year, and overall private prices rose just 0.5% in Q2 — a measured pace rather than a runaway.
What's next: the seventh lunar month runs from mid-August, so expect a quiet few weeks, then a busy window from mid-September with Amberwood at Holland, Lucerne Grand and The Serra Residences lining up. If a new launch is on your radar, the maths to do before the showflat is the same as ever — what the monthly instalment really is at today's rates, and what quantum your income actually supports. Roov's Affordability and Mortgage Rates tools will give you both in minutes.
Figures: URA developer sales data and lodged caveats, July 2026.