Buying At The District 18 Median Takes $350,000 Before The Loan — And Stamp Duty Runs To $791,000 For A Foreigner

This is an illustrative example built on the quarter's median price and a stated buyer profile. It is not a real purchase, not a valuation of any home, and not advice on whether or how to buy. Every figure in it is computed from recorded transactions and the tax and financing rules recorded as in force.

A median price tells you where the middle of the market sits. It does not tell you what a buyer has to find on the day, or what the home costs to keep. We took District 18 in 2Q2026 and built one example around the median. Here's what stood out to us. The headline looks simple, but the detail splits into stamp duty, a loan cap, cash and CPF, and five years of carrying costs. Each of those moves with who is buying, and the last table shows how far.

According to URA Data Service caveats, District 18 (Tampines, Pasir Ris) recorded 114 sales of 60 to 99 sqm private units in 2Q2026, at a median of $1,260,000. That is -2.7% y-o-y, against $1,295,000 a year earlier. We built the example on a Singapore citizen aged 35, buying a first home as an owner-occupier, with a household income of $18,000 a month and a bank loan over 25 years. This site's own engine computed the rest from the rules recorded as in force. The total needed before the loan comes to $350,000.

The median price is lower than a year ago, and it sits on a small set of recorded sales

The table below sets out the sales behind the median. District 18 recorded 114 sales in 2Q2026. The median price was $1,260,000, or $1,539 psf, for a median size of 915 sqft. A year earlier the median price was $1,295,000, so the change is -2.7%. We use the median as the purchase price for everything that follows. It is the price in the middle of the quarter's recorded sales. It is not the price of any one unit, and it is not an asking price. Every figure in this piece is indicative and comes from recorded transactions.

A median moves with what happens to sell in a given quarter. A quarter with more large units, or more sales from newer projects, can shift the figure without any change in what a given home costs. The data we hold here does not break the sales down by project or age. So it cannot settle how much of the year-on-year change reflects mix. The size band is 60 to 99 sqm, which keeps the units broadly comparable. It does not make them identical. We read the median as a fair marker of the quarter, and no more than that.

The purchase needs $350,000 in hand before the loan is counted

Start with the table below. Stamp duty on the median price is $35,000. All of it is buyer's stamp duty, and additional buyer's stamp duty is $0 at 0%. The maximum loan is $945,000, at 75.0% of the price. The buyer then pays at least $63,000 in cash. A further $252,000 can come from CPF or cash. Add stamp duty and those two amounts and you get $350,000 before the loan. What stood out to us is how large that sum is, even with a loan at the 75% limit.

The loan sits on top of that sum, not inside it. Fees at purchase are not in this table. The five-year hold cost further down counts them, together with stamp duty, under costs going in. So the two tables overlap on stamp duty and should be read as two views of the same purchase. They are not two separate bills. The table also assumes the buyer takes the maximum loan the rules allow. A smaller loan would change the cash line, and the example does not model that.

The 75% loan-to-value cap sets the loan limit, not the income test

The loan limit in the table below is $945,000. The loan-to-value cap of 75% sets it, as loan number 1 over 25 years. The TDSR limit would allow $1,875,580, so it does not bind. The MSR is not applicable to this purchase. The binding limit is therefore the loan-to-value limit. That matters for how we read the example. At this income and this price, the buyer is not held back by the debt-servicing test. The price, and the share of it a bank can lend, set the size of the loan.

The monthly instalment is $4,481 at 3%. That is 24.9% of the stated income of $18,000 a month. At the 4% stress rate used for the TDSR test, the instalment is $4,988. The stress figure is a test number. It is not the rate on the example loan. We show both because they answer different questions. One is what the loan costs at the example rate. The other is what the loan is tested against. The share of income is measured against the stated income only.

Holding the home for five years costs $226,257 in all, before any change in price

The table below splits the five-year cost into four parts. Costs going in come to $38,270, which includes stamp duty and fees. Interest over the five years is $131,905, the largest single piece. Property tax and maintenance add $25,344. Costs coming out, when the home is sold, are $30,738. Together that makes $226,257 in all. The split suggests that interest, rather than tax or upkeep, carries most of the weight in a hold of this length on a loan at the maximum.

These figures rest on stated assumptions. The sale happens at today's indicative mid value after 5 years, so the hold carries no price gain or loss. Interest comes from a standard amortisation schedule at the given rate, on the maximum loan. The seller pays 2% commission and $3,000 in legal fees, plus 9% GST. Property tax uses an assumed annual value, and maintenance follows the configured norm. On those terms the price would need to rise 18.4% over the five years to cover the cost. That number describes the example's arithmetic. It is not a view on where District 18 prices are heading.

The same price carries very different stamp duty depending on who is buying

The table below holds the price fixed and changes only the buyer. Buyer's stamp duty is $35,000 for every profile. The additional duty is what moves. A Singapore citizen buying a first home pays 0%. A Singapore citizen buying a second home pays 20%, which is $252,000, for $287,000 in total. A permanent resident buying a first home pays 5%, which is $63,000, for $98,000 in total. A foreigner pays 60%, which is $756,000, for $791,000 in total. The spread between the first and last rows is the widest gap in this whole example.

The loan cap also differs by profile. The table puts the LTV cap at 45.0% for a citizen buying a second home. The other three profiles sit at 75.0%. So a second home changes both the duty and the share the bank can lend. Rates here are versioned data, checked against IRAS and MAS publications on 2026-09-18. The newest version applied took effect 2025-07-04. These rules can change, and the table reflects them as recorded for this quarter's example only.

The example leaves several things open. It rests on a single quarter's median, and the median can shift with the mix of units sold. It uses one buyer profile, one loan type and one tenure. It also assumes a sale at today's indicative mid value, so it says nothing about what a future sale might fetch. In the 3Q2026 data we will look at whether the median and the count of sales move from 2Q2026, since every figure here scales off that price. We will also check whether any rule version changes.

One headline number is rarely enough on its own. A median tells you where a quarter landed, and a worked example tells you what that figure asks of a buyer. The value lies in how both sit against the broader direction of the market over several quarters. We would rather lay the pieces side by side and let you read them, than lean on any single figure to carry the whole story.

Method: an illustrative example, not a real purchase. The price is the median of the quarter's recorded sales named. The buyer is a Singapore citizen first-time owner-occupier aged 35. The stated household income is S$18,000 a month, with no other debt. The loan is the maximum, over 25 years at 3%. Stamp duty, loan limits, instalments and the five-year hold cost are computed by this site's position engine under the rules recorded as in force for the quarter. The rule versions used are bsd 2023-02-15, absd 2023-04-27, ssd 2025-07-04, ltv 2024-08-20, tdsr 2022-09-30, property_tax 2025-01-01, costs 2020-01-01. Further assumptions: sale at today's indicative mid value after 5 years. Seller pays 2% commission and S$3,000 legal fees, plus 9% GST. Mortgage interest from a standard amortisation schedule at the given rate. Loan of S$945,000 (75% of the price), the maximum available. Property tax on an assumed annual value of S$36,720 (85% of market rent). Maintenance at the configured norm. Rates are versioned data in config/rules.yaml, checked against IRAS and MAS publications on 2026-09-18. The newest version applied here took effect 2025-07-04. Rules change with each cooling-measure round. Private figures are from URA Data Service caveats, HDB figures from data.gov.sg resale records, both loaded weekly by this site's ingest. Medians are of the non-excluded transactions in the period named. Sales flagged by the hygiene rules (related-party transfers, bulk deals, outliers) are left out. Every figure is indicative and drawn from recorded transactions, not a formal valuation.