How much more does a high floor cost in Singapore?

About 0.63 per cent of the price per square foot for each storey — roughly 6 per cent for 10 floors, and 1.25 times across 36 storeys. That is measured inside the same block, across 758 HDB blocks and 4,353 sales. The much larger figure in circulation — 2.1 times, from $555 psf on storeys 01 to 03 to $1,180 psf on storeys 37 to 39 — compares different buildings, not different floors.

The two ways to measure it, and why they disagree

There is only one dataset here and two questions that sound identical. What do high flats cost? is answered by sorting every sale into storey bands and taking a median of each. What will a higher floor cost me? is a different question, and the bands answer it badly, because the blocks that have a high floor to sell are not a random sample of Singapore: they are newer, their leases are longer, and they stand in Queenstown and Bukit Merah rather than in Woodlands.

The way to take the building out of the comparison is to stop comparing buildings. Inside one block the address is its own control — same age, same lease, same town, same model, same walk to the station — and the only thing left varying between two sales is the floor and the unit itself. Do that across every block with enough sales spread far enough apart, and take the median of the per-block gradients.

Both columns describe 36 storeys of climb, so they are directly comparable, and they differ by a factor of 1.7.

An independent check. TribeSG, an agency-backed site, ran a within-block storey regression on the same public dataset and published 0.6 per cent a storey. It is not our figure and it was not derived our way, and it lands on 0.63. Two unrelated routes to one number is the best validation available here.

A worked example

Take a 1,000 sq ft flat priced at $555 psf, the median for storeys 01 to 03 — so $555,000 on the lowest floors. Go up 10 floors and the measured gradient puts it at about $35,973 more, or 6 per cent. Read the same flat off the pooled bands instead and the whole climb from the bottom band to the top appears to be worth $625,000 — most of a second flat, and mostly the difference between a new block in a dear town and an old one in a cheap one.

The pooled bands, which are still worth publishing

They are true statements about what exists at each height in Singapore. “A 4 room flat on storeys 37 to 39 sold for a median of $1,180 psf” is a fact, and a buyer looking at a high-floor unit wants to know it. What cannot be done is subtracting one band from another and calling the difference a premium.

The private market says the same thing, more loudly

Condominiums and apartments band the same way: $1,646 psf on storeys 01-05 across 41,981 sales, rising to $3,287 psf on storeys 56-60 across 113 sales — 2.0 times across the range. And then the giveaway: the climb is not in order. The median drops from $2,826 psf on storeys 36-40, across 1,167 sales, to $2,553 psf on storeys 41-45, across 415 sales — and then climbs again higher up. No market pays less for a higher floor. What that dip records is that the buildings in Singapore tall enough to sell those floors are not the most expensive buildings in Singapore.

How this is measured

From 243,611 HDB resale transactions published on data.gov.sg and read on Oct 2026, refreshed nightly.

• One flat type, one year. The bands and the gradient are both 4 room flats sold in 2025, so a change in the mix of flat sizes cannot appear as a change in price.
• The gradient needs a block that sold across floors. A block qualifies with at least four sales spanning at least six storeys; 758 blocks and 4,353 sales clear that bar, with a median span of 12 storeys between the sales compared.
• A median of gradients, not a gradient of medians. Each qualifying block gets a least-squares slope of price per square foot against storey, expressed as a share of that block’s own mean price per square foot — so a dear block in Queenstown and a cheap one in Woodlands contribute comparable gradients rather than the dear one dominating. The published figure is the median of those slopes, so one unusual block cannot move it.
• Storeys are a band in the source. HDB publishes a three-storey range rather than a floor, so the storey used is the midpoint of that range.
• No rounding on the way through. The median helper once rounded an even count to a whole number, which reported this gradient as one per cent instead of 0.63. Rounding is a display concern and happens only here.

The confound that remains inside a block: a higher unit in an older block may also have been renovated, and a corner unit on floor 3 is not a stack unit on floor 13. The method controls for the building, not for the unit. See the full method.

Questions people ask

How much more does a high floor cost in Singapore?

Measured inside the same block, a storey is worth 0.63 per cent of the price per square foot — about 6 per cent for 10 floors, and 1.25 times across 36 storeys. That is the median gradient across 758 HDB blocks and 4,353 sales where the same block sold units on floors far enough apart to compare.

Why do the price tables show high floors costing twice as much?

Because those tables pool every block in Singapore. 4 room flats sold in 2025 on storeys 01 to 03 ran a median $555 psf across 1,767 sales, and storeys 37 to 39 ran $1,180 psf across 34 sales — 2.1 times. Every one of those numbers is correct, and the ratio between them is not a height premium: only newer blocks in dearer towns have a high floor to sell, so the bottom band is drawn from nearly every block in the country and the top band from a few dozen. The storey number is standing in for the building.

What is a higher floor worth in dollars?

On a 1,000 sq ft flat priced at the lowest band's own $555 psf, going up 10 floors is worth about $35,973 at the measured within-block gradient. The pooled bands imply $625,000 for the full climb from the bottom band to the top, which is the figure to distrust.

Has anyone else measured the Singapore storey premium?

Yes. TribeSG ran a within-block storey regression on the same public HDB dataset and published 0.6 per cent per storey, against the 0.63 per cent computed here from a median of per-block gradients. Two unrelated routes to one number is the strongest validation available for a figure like this, and it is the same device that gives the rest of this site’s price work its confidence.

Does a high floor cost more in condominiums too?

The bands climb in the same way and carry the same confound. Private flats on storeys 01-05 ran a median $1,646 psf across 41,981 sales and storeys 56-60 ran $3,287 psf across 113 sales, which is 2.0 times. They do not climb in order, though: the median drops from $2,826 psf on storeys 36-40 to $2,553 psf on storeys 41-45 before rising again. No market pays less for a higher floor; what that dip records is that the buildings tall enough to sell those floors are not the dearest buildings in Singapore. No within-block gradient is computed for the private market, because URA bands storeys in fives rather than giving a floor, so this site publishes no private equivalent of the HDB figure.

Citing this. Computed on Oct 2026 from 243,611 HDB resale transactions, and recomputed nightly, so quote the date you read it. Permanent link: https://www.dailystudysg.com/storey-premium. The story of how this site got this figure wrong, and what it took to notice, is in the article.