How a Private Home Is Actually Valued in Singapore

Buyers tend to use "valuation" and "price" as if they were the same number. They are not, and the distance between them is where transactions get into trouble.

Price is what a willing buyer and a willing seller agree. Valuation is a bank-appointed valuer's independent estimate of what the property is worth, prepared so the bank knows what it is lending against. The two are usually close, and occasionally they are not — and when they are not, it is the buyer who covers the difference in cash.

The mechanics matter here. Loan-to-value limits — 75% on a first housing loan, 45% on a second — apply to the lower of the purchase price or the valuation. Buy at S$5 million against a valuation of S$4.8 million, and the bank lends 75% of S$4.8 million, not of what you paid. The S$200,000 shortfall becomes additional cash on completion, on top of the downpayment you had already budgeted. Buyers who have stretched to their limit discover this late, and it is not a problem that can be solved by negotiating harder.

Valuers work primarily from comparables: recent transactions of similar properties, adjusted for the things that genuinely differ. For a condominium that means floor level, facing, stack, unit size and layout, and the age and condition of the development. For landed property it means land area far more than built-up area, plus plot shape and frontage, road type, and what the plot could be redeveloped into. Two houses on the same street can value very differently if one sits on a wider, more regular plot.

Stamp duty follows a related but separate rule: Buyer's Stamp Duty and ABSD are computed on the higher of the purchase price or the market value, and Seller's Stamp Duty likewise. So a buyer who negotiates a price below market value does not get a stamp duty discount — the tax is assessed on the value, not the bargain.

The practical takeaway is unglamorous. Get an indicative valuation before you commit, not after. In a market where prices are moving unevenly between segments — the overall private residential index rose 0.5% in the second quarter of 2026, while the landed segment behaved quite differently — recent comparables can lag the price you are being asked to pay. That gap is the buyer's to fund.