Jumbo flats are the rarest homes in the HDB market. They are two flats joined into one, usually far larger than anything HDB builds today, and they have been in the news since a jumbo in Telok Blangah was listed at $2.18 million and HDB said it would review the scheme that allows them. We covered what that listing would really cost a buyer in cash. This piece is the buyer's guide: what a jumbo is, what the resale market actually looks like, and the catch most listings leave out.
What a jumbo flat is
HDB first built jumbo flats in 1989, joining pairs of unsold 3-room and 4-room flats to give larger families more space, Dollars and Sense recounts. The first were in Yishun; HDB no longer builds them. Since 1993 owners have also been able to create one themselves under HDB's conversion scheme, by combining a 3-room or smaller flat with the unit next door.
The rules for converting, as Dollars and Sense sets them out: HDB must first confirm that the two units can be joined; you then buy both together, or buy your neighbour's flat; you must open at least one doorway of about 1m by 2m between them and remove one set of utility meters; and the result is a single flat under one lease that can never be split again. Buying the second unit carries a fresh minimum occupation period of five years, and a resale levy may apply when you sell. Buying two flats at once must also pass the block's ethnic and PR quotas.
What the resale market looks like
HDB's resale records label these homes "adjoined flats", and they are genuinely scarce. Roov's records show 148 resales since 2023: 34 in 2023, 40 in 2024, 37 in 2025 and 37 so far this year. That is roughly three a month across the whole island.
The median jumbo resold for $915,000 this year, for about 1,580 sq ft. The highest this year was $1.53 million. Over the last two years the most active towns were Ang Mo Kio (15 sales, median $1.09 million), Bedok (11, $860,000), Kallang/Whampoa (10, $867,500), Geylang, Bukit Merah and Clementi; town medians ranged from about $800,000 to $1.09 million.
Are they expensive? Per square foot, no
Jumbos make headlines for their price, but the price is mostly their size. In the same towns over the last two years:
Jumbo (adjoined): median $591 psf, for about 1,490 sq ft. Executive flat: $580 psf, for about 1,570 sq ft. 5-room flat: $574 psf, for about 1,290 sq ft.
So a jumbo costs about what the space would cost in any large HDB flat, with a premium of only 2 to 3 per cent per square foot. The Telok Blangah listing, at about $1,488 psf, was asking two and a half times that.
The catch: they are old
Almost every jumbo that changes hands was built in the 1970s or early 1980s. In the most active towns, the median lease began between 1970 and 1980, which means most jumbos on the market today have roughly 43 to 53 years left.
That changes the purchase more than the size does. With that much lease gone, a buyer's CPF use can be pro-rated, the bank may lend less, and the next buyer will face the same limits with even fewer years. We set out every one of those rules, with what they do to price, in what an older HDB flat really costs you.
Who a jumbo suits
A family that needs the space now, can pay largely in cash, and plans to stay: for them a jumbo can be the most room for the money in a mature town. For anyone buying mainly as an investment, the short lease and the thin pool of buyers weigh against it, and the review HDB has announced adds uncertainty about the scheme itself.
If you want space for several generations without the lease question, compare it with a new 5-room or executive: we looked at what Tampines' bigger flats are actually worth. Before you bid on any jumbo, check it against recent sales with Roov's valuation tool, and see what the loan and cash would be in the affordability calculator. Our guide to buying an HDB resale flat covers the rest of the process.
Thinking about a jumbo, or about buying your neighbour's flat to make one? Roov's agent can pull the recent sales and the lease numbers for the block with you. Get in touch.