What Singapore’s rental rejections reveal about racial bias

You don’t forget the feeling of being turned away from a place you were ready to call home. Sometimes the message is delivered with fake regret. “Sorry, already taken.” Other times it’s coded in property listings: “Chinese landlord only.” “Open to Indian professionals.” “No cooking, no pets.”
And occasionally—when the agent is unusually candid—it’s just three words:
“Race issue lah.”

This is what it feels like to apartment hunt in Singapore when you don’t fit the preferred racial profile. And for many Indian, Malay, Filipino, African, and Bangladeshi renters, the experience repeats across neighborhoods, budgets, and housing types. The rejection doesn’t always say “race.” It doesn’t have to. You learn to read the silence.

This isn’t an edge case. It’s a known, persistent pattern.

Singapore’s image is spotless. Modern, safe, multicultural, efficient. And in many ways, it is. There’s much to admire in how the country has managed ethnic diversity, from bilingual education and racial quotas in public housing to interfaith dialogue.

But private rental housing lives outside the boundaries of the HDB Ethnic Integration Policy. Here, individual landlords get to decide who they want—and often, who they don’t. The result? A two-tier experience in which minority tenants, especially those with darker skin or non-Chinese names, face implicit (and sometimes explicit) rejection.

In a 2021 CNA investigative report, 1 in 4 Indian and Malay tenants reported experiencing racial bias in the rental process. Another study by the Institute of Policy Studies found that nearly half of surveyed landlords admitted to racial preferences—mostly favoring Chinese tenants. Online forums are filled with accounts from minorities saying they’ve been rejected repeatedly, even when they offered higher rent or longer leases.

What’s disturbing isn’t that these cases exist. It’s how normal they’ve become.

It usually begins with optimism. A new job, a move across town, a fresh chapter. You browse listings, filter by budget, location, and—crucially—ignore the “race preference” field. Most say “no preference.” That feels like a good sign.

But after a few viewings, patterns emerge. You’re not called back. Or you’re told someone else confirmed faster—only to see the same listing reposted days later. Or you ask to arrange a viewing and the agent delays, then ghosts. Or they’re honest and say: “The landlord prefers Chinese tenants.”

Many Indians and Malays in Singapore have learned to ask up front: “Is my race going to be an issue?” Not out of victimhood. Out of efficiency. Out of exhaustion. Some expats learn the workaround: use a Chinese friend’s name to schedule the viewing, then show up and hope the landlord’s too polite to object. It’s humiliating. But sometimes, it’s the only way to even see the flat.

Landlords who admit to race filtering rarely call it racism. They say they’re being practical. They talk about curry smells, cleanliness, loud prayers, too many roommates, “bad experiences” from the past. Some blame neighbors—“They’ll complain if I rent to a foreigner.” Others defer to tradition: “My parents won’t be comfortable.”

To them, this isn’t discrimination. It’s risk management. But here’s the truth: Those “practical” concerns are stereotypes. They reduce entire communities to caricatures and expect tenants to prove otherwise before they even get a viewing. The problem isn’t that landlords have preferences. It’s that those preferences are racial—and that the system doesn’t discourage it.

In Singapore’s private rental market, there’s no anti-discrimination law that stops a landlord from rejecting someone based on race. The Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) has guidelines, but they’re voluntary. Agents can advise landlords to avoid discrimination, but ultimately, the landlord decides. And many choose bias over fairness.

You get used to it, people say. You learn not to take it personally. You learn to strategize. But the truth is, you shouldn’t have to.

Because the emotional toll is real. Repeated rejection chips away at dignity. It teaches people to hide parts of themselves. Some Indian professionals adopt Western names. Some Muslim tenants stop wearing hijab to viewings. Some couples avoid listing both names in applications. The message is: Fit in, or miss out.

It’s not just tenants who feel this. Agents from minority groups have also spoken out about being pressured by landlords to avoid “certain races”—or being forced to relay those preferences to clients. Imagine telling someone: “Sorry, they won’t consider you because of your skin color.” Now imagine saying it ten times a month.

Over time, this quiet racism erodes more than opportunity. It erodes self-worth.

If a country allows race-based rejection in something as fundamental as housing, it sends a message about who really belongs. This matters not just for tenants, but for Singapore’s social fabric. The private rental sector is growing—especially as more young Singaporeans delay homeownership and more foreigners relocate here for work. If racial discrimination becomes normalized in this segment, it creates a shadow housing market where some groups are welcome and others are merely tolerated.

That’s not multiculturalism. That’s conditional inclusion. And if left unaddressed, it undermines national values. Because integration doesn’t stop at schools and workplaces. It includes where people live, eat, sleep, and build community. You can’t promote racial harmony on National Day while letting landlords segregate renters by ethnicity.

There’s a cost to discrimination—and it’s not just emotional. Minority tenants often pay more, settle for less, or waste weeks being filtered out. A Black professional may be shown only one-third the listings his Chinese colleague sees. A Malay family may have to rent farther from school or work because “preferred” areas are less welcoming. A Filipino nurse may end up living with strangers in an overcrowded flat because every single studio was “suddenly taken.”

The market isn’t neutral. It rewards the already favored—and punishes the rest. Even as Singapore positions itself as a global city, the rental experience can feel deeply parochial.

Many people, including some minorities, have given up on talking about this. “It won’t change.” “Just find a workaround.” “It’s the way things are.”

But silence helps discrimination survive. And the truth is, Singapore’s housing system is already proof that policy can shape integration. The Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) for HDB flats—though flawed—was created to avoid racial enclaves. That shows political will. It shows recognition that race matters in housing.

So why not extend that recognition to private rentals?

Some civil society groups have called for anti-discrimination laws, clear CEA enforcement, and anonymized rental applications to reduce bias. These aren’t radical ideas. They’re basic equity mechanisms used in other countries. In the UK, it’s illegal to reject a tenant based on race. In the US, the Fair Housing Act protects renters from exactly this kind of treatment.

Singapore doesn’t need to copy those models entirely. But it does need to decide what kind of housing culture it wants to grow.

Singaporeans are often told not to rock the boat. Not to air uncomfortable truths. But harmony built on avoidance is fragile. When minorities whisper to each other about “what areas are safe” or “which agents will be fair,” that’s not harmony. That’s coping. When Chinese tenants say, “I never knew this happened,” that’s not peace. That’s invisibility.

Racial discrimination in the rental market doesn’t need to look like hate to be harmful. It just needs to go unchallenged.

When someone says, “Sorry, the landlord changed their mind,” They might be protecting a preference. Or they might be protecting prejudice. And if we keep pretending we can’t tell the difference, the burden will always fall on the same shoulders.

Minority renters in Singapore don’t need sympathy. They need equal access. Not because it’s politically correct. But because it’s what fairness looks like in practice. Because every person deserves a real chance to find a home. Not just a place to live—but a place they’re allowed to belong.