Rising Land Bids Push New Condo Prices Into Focus as S$3,000 PSF Becomes the New Normal

Strong take-up at freshly marketed projects over the last two years has given developers greater confidence to compete aggressively for GLS sites, analysts said. But higher land costs immediately raise the floor on pricing, lifting project break-even levels already pulled up by rising construction costs. This leaves developers to test whether buyers can absorb higher prices when the projects are launched in one to two years’ time.

In the seven tenders that have closed so far this year for new condo sites, top bids ranged from S$962 psf ppr for a Dairy Farm plot to S$1,625 psf ppr for a prime Dunearn Road parcel. Four city fringe sites went around the S$1,500 psf mark, pointing to selling prices averaging in the S$2,800 to S$3,000 psf range when they hit the market in 2027 to 2028.

While the S$3,000 psf range is typical for new condos in or just outside the prime Core Central Region (CCR), average prices of Rest of Central Region (RCR) projects such as The Orie in Toa Payoh and Penrith in Queenstown hovered near the S$2,800 psf mark when launched in 2025. Most recently in April, the launch of Vela Bay in the Outside Central Region (OCR) precinct of Bayshore clocked an average price of just under S$2,900 psf.

The following table summarises new projects with launch weekend sales of over 70 per cent, showing how median prices and underlying land costs have moved across market segments.

Overall, median prices of new projects crossed the S$2,000 psf mark only in 2022, according to PropNex data. Median new sale prices jumped 22 per cent to S$2,233 psf in 2022, from S$1,834 psf the year before. Since 2022, median new sale prices have risen 15 per cent to S$2,572 psf in 2025.

Land bids have trended higher recently in part due to differences in quality and location of sites on the annual GLS programme, with distinctly more prime sites released in the last year. CBRE research head for Southeast Asia Tricia Song estimated that the average land rate for prime GLS sites awarded in 2025 and 2026 year-to-date was 13.1 per cent higher, at S$1,533 psf ppr, than those awarded in 2023 and 2024.

In the RCR, the average land rate rose 18.8 per cent to S$1,355 psf ppr. In the OCR suburbs, the increase was 19 per cent to S$1,138 psf ppr.

Excluding executive condominiums and developments with significant commercial components, Savills executive director for research and consultancy Alan Cheong put the increase in average land rates at 12.1 per cent to S$1,267 psf ppr, from 2023 to 2025.