Singapore’s HDB flats named most attainable in APAC, but locals question what that really means

Singapore’s Housing & Development Board (HDB) flats have long been considered one of the government’s most successful policy interventions—central to social stability, asset accumulation, and public housing access. In 2025, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) added another accolade, naming Singapore the top-ranked city in Asia Pacific for housing attainability. While the report celebrates Singapore’s ability to keep flat prices within a defined affordability threshold, public reactions at home reveal a more complicated emotional and policy landscape. This isn’t just a housing story. It’s a tension between data and experience.

According to the ULI’s 2025 Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index, Singapore stood out as the only national capital where homes met the affordability standard of costing no more than five times the median annual household income. The benchmark, used widely by urban economists, reflects what housing researchers consider a healthy balance between income and cost. In Singapore, new Build-to-Order (BTO) flats—subsidized and released directly by the government—continue to meet that bar, at least for first-time citizen buyers with stable dual incomes.

But the news landed awkwardly on local social media. Singaporeans took to Reddit, TikTok, and comment sections to express skepticism. Many questioned whether relative affordability should be celebrated when it still requires young couples to take on 25- to 30-year mortgages, rely heavily on their CPF savings, and limit flexibility in work and family planning. For others, the ULI comparison to cities like Tokyo or Sydney missed the point. One user wrote, “So our flats are only affordable when we compare to cities with housing crises?”

The ULI index may reflect a global housing view. But for Singaporeans, the housing debate is deeply personal, tied to national identity, generational fairness, and social compact expectations.

Singapore’s housing model is distinctive not just in its outcomes but in its design. The state controls over 90% of the land, which allows the government to directly intervene in land cost, urban planning, and housing release schedules. The Housing & Development Board operates under the Ministry of National Development, functioning as a statutory board with a mandate that blends public welfare and fiscal discipline.

New flats are priced below market rates and come with grants such as the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant, which further reduces upfront cost for eligible buyers. These flats are subject to a minimum occupancy period and resale restrictions, ensuring they serve their policy purpose as homes, not investment vehicles.

This system has allowed Singapore to avoid the extremes seen in cities like Hong Kong, where median home prices exceed 20 times median annual income, or Sydney, where speculative demand and planning bottlenecks have sidelined entire generations from homeownership.

Crucially, most Singaporeans fund their flat purchases through their CPF accounts. Mortgage servicing ratios are tightly regulated, with the government capping the proportion of income that can go toward housing loans. These measures provide stability—but they also anchor most of a household’s retirement savings into a single, illiquid asset.

While the affordability framework remains strong for its intended group—Singaporean citizen couples applying for new flats—many fall outside its core protective structure. Permanent residents are excluded from BTO launches and must rely on the resale market, where prices have steadily increased due to demand spillover. Foreigners are effectively shut out by design, facing a 60% Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) on residential property purchases. Singles can apply only after turning 35 and typically receive fewer grant benefits.

This tiered access is deliberate. It reinforces homeownership as both a citizen privilege and a form of national belonging. But it also creates tension as more Singaporeans delay marriage, migrate for work, or live in multi-generational households with changing care needs. For these groups, affordability isn't just about price. It's about fit, availability, and timing.

And as resale prices climb, even citizen buyers face new forms of pressure. Young couples compete for flats near parents to qualify for proximity grants. Families navigate complex tradeoffs between space, commute time, and school access. In this landscape, affordability remains bounded by eligibility and increasingly narrow definitions of housing need.

Despite meeting international affordability metrics, many Singaporeans experience their housing journey as increasingly costly. Several structural shifts explain the disconnect.

First, while new flat prices remain within the 5x income rule, resale prices have climbed. The median resale price of a 4-room flat in mature estates now exceeds S$600,000—a number well above historical norms. This affects second-time buyers, those upgrading due to family size, or those who must turn to resale due to timing or location constraints.

Second, construction costs have risen post-pandemic, due to supply chain disruptions and manpower shortages. While the government has absorbed some of this through deferred pricing and cost offsets, future flat launches are likely to reflect these inflationary pressures.

Third, the size of flats has declined. Today’s 4-room flats offer about 90 square meters—down from earlier generations that saw 100 to 110 square meters as standard. This downsizing is both a cost and density response, particularly in central or mature estates. Yet it affects livability, household formation choices, and perceptions of value. One user commented, “Our homes are now designed for function, not for family life.”

Lastly, housing debt burdens, while well-managed systemically, are individually weighty. A 25-year mortgage consumes a large share of a household’s CPF Ordinary Account contributions. For those who later leave the workforce, switch to part-time roles, or face caregiving responsibilities, that locked-up CPF becomes a constraint.

Singapore’s housing model is built on leasehold ownership. Every HDB flat is sold on a 99-year lease, after which the land reverts to the state. While this structure enables affordability—by separating land cost from unit cost—it also complicates long-term asset planning.

Flats with less than 60 years of lease tend to see muted appreciation and limited financing options. For older estates, this introduces uncertainty. While the government’s Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) provides rehousing pathways for selected precincts, it is not a universal safety net.

The long-term implication is that HDB flats are consumption goods with decaying value—not wealth stores with guaranteed appreciation. This reframes the flat from being a financial asset to being a retirement planning variable. It also intensifies pressure on younger generations to “buy early and upgrade quickly,” lest their asset stagnate in value.

The ULI report highlights how rare Singapore’s system is. Most other Asia Pacific cities rely on private market dynamics, zoning policies, and indirect subsidies. For instance, in Australia, housing affordability relies on state-level land release and tax incentives. In Japan, housing supply is flexible but largely private-sector driven. In Hong Kong, a substantial proportion of the population lives in public rental housing—but the Home Ownership Scheme remains undersupplied and heavily rationed.

What these cities lack is Singapore’s centralized land control. The ability to set flat prices, release housing supply, and determine eligibility criteria gives Singapore unparalleled policy control. But it also means that every policy decision—on grant quantum, project location, lease terms, and income caps—has real distributional consequences.

In this context, “attainability” isn’t just a function of economics. It’s a function of governance, trust, and planning discipline.

Another challenge facing Singapore’s housing narrative is the changing meaning of homeownership. In earlier decades, flat ownership conferred a sense of social mobility. Resale values rose. Upgrading was common. CPF withdrawals for housing were viewed as both prudent and patriotic.

Today, that narrative is less secure. As lease decay limits resale upside and longer mortgages delay financial freedom, the flat becomes less of a stepping stone and more of a permanent anchor. For young families with children, high housing commitments reduce flexibility in job choice, savings accumulation, and fertility planning.

Moreover, heavy CPF use for housing lowers balances available for retirement. While the government has taken steps to rebalance this—such as introducing the Retirement Sum Topping-Up Scheme—there remains a structural tension between housing as shelter and housing as wealth.

And while capital appreciation is possible in resale flats with strong location or renovation attributes, the days of broad-based flat value gains are likely over. This makes it even more critical that buyers understand what their flat is—and what it is not.

Singapore’s HDB system remains the envy of many nations. But as the city-state matures, its housing policies face new demands. An aging population means more households may seek right-sizing or elder-friendly designs. A rising number of singles challenge the traditional family-based grant structure. And younger generations may prioritize flexibility over long-term ownership, especially in an age of remote work and international mobility.

At the same time, fiscal prudence and land scarcity mean the government cannot simply expand housing benefits. Every grant, every subsidy, every eligibility tweak must be carefully calibrated to avoid overheating the resale market or distorting incentives.

This creates a policy tension. How can Singapore preserve attainability for the next generation—without diluting the system’s fiscal integrity or turning public housing into a political bargaining tool?

So far, the government has responded with targeted interventions: Prime Location Public Housing (PLH) rules to manage windfall gains, new project launches in non-mature estates to spread demand, and clear communication about the role of HDB in nation-building. But these steps will need to evolve as family structures shift, inflation persists, and geopolitical volatility affects cost structures.

The ULI’s 2025 ranking confirms what many policymakers already know: Singapore’s HDB system remains structurally sound and globally exceptional. It delivers ownership, shelter, and price discipline at a scale few cities can match. But data doesn’t always align with daily experience. To the average Singaporean, affordability isn’t a ratio. It’s a question of whether the home fits their life—financially, emotionally, and socially. That gap between system design and lived reality is where the next phase of housing policy must focus.

Attainability, after all, is not a status. It’s a commitment.