Articles · Prices, Affordability
Singapore flats have outpaced wages by 19 points since 2017
Resale prices rose 52 per cent a square foot while median household income rose 33. A median flat now costs 4.4 years of a household’s gross earnings, against 3.8 in 2017.
Oct 19, 2026 · Daily Study SG
Between 2017 and 2025 the price of a square foot of Housing Board resale flat rose 52 per cent. Over the same period the median resident household’s monthly income from work rose 33 per cent, from $9,044 to $12,027.
The difference is about 19 percentage points, and it is the whole story of the past eight years in the public housing market.
- Flat prices
- Income
Show the figures
| Year | Median psf | Household income | Years of income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | $398 | $9,044 | 3.8 |
| 2018 | $391 | $9,315 | 3.7 |
| 2019 | $388 | $9,442 | 3.5 |
| 2020 | $405 | $9,208 | 3.8 |
| 2021 | $457 | $9,544 | 4.2 |
| 2022 | $499 | $10,120 | 4.3 |
| 2023 | $530 | $10,882 | 4.2 |
| 2024 | $566 | $11,314 | 4.3 |
| 2025 | $604 | $12,027 | 4.4 |
| 2026 (part) | $602 | — | — |
What it means for a buyer
The cleanest way to feel the gap is to count a flat in years of earnings. In 2017 the median resale flat cost 3.8 years of a median household’s gross income. By 2025 it cost 4.4 years. The household earns more than it did; the flat has moved further away all the same.
That figure is gross and undiscounted, so it is not a measure of what a bank will lend or what a mortgage costs — it is a measure of distance. For the cost side, the calculator works out the duty, the deposit and the interest on a particular flat.
The gap did not open evenly
Prices fell slightly in 2018 and 2019, and incomes kept rising, so the ratio actually improved in the late 2010s. The reversal is concentrated in the three years from 2020: the widest single-year divergence came in 2025, and the ratio has not returned since.
The most recent year is the first sign of a pause. In 2026, across 21,545 sales recorded so far, the median stands at $602 psf against $604 psf the year before. That is a part-year figure and should be read as one — it covers only the months published to date, and the comparison will not be sound until the year closes.
How this was worked out
Prices are the median across all 243,611 resale transactions the Housing Board has published since 2017, expressed per square foot so that a change in the mix of flat sizes sold does not masquerade as a change in price. Income is the SingStat annual series, which lags, so 2026 has prices but no income yet. Both are indexed to 2017 because two measures of different size cannot honestly share an axis any other way. The method sets out the sources in full.