Rents for 3 Bedroom Units Rose 3% Year-On-Year (YoY), 5 Bedrooms Fell 2.3%
District 6 (City Hall/Clarke Quay/Beach Road/High Street) commanded the highest rent of S$15,000 per month for 3-bedrooms non-landed private residential home in Q3/2025. District 1 (Boat Quay/Marina/Raffles Place) came in second with a highest average median rent at S$8,500 followed by District 4 (Harbourfront/Telok Blangah) with S$8,300. District 9 (Orchard/River Valley) came in fourth at S$7,800 and District 2 (Chinatown/Tanjong Pagar) is fifth at S$7,600.
Excluding outliers (henceforth, the comparisons exclude outliers), on a Quarter-on-Quarter (QoQ) basis, the rental increase for 1-5 bedrooms non-landed properties was slower at 1.1%. That said, the 5-bedroom types rose the most at 4.2% QoQ while the 3-bedroom units rose 1.2% with the 4-bedrooms rising 1.6%.
For Q3/2025, rents rose 0.6% QoQ in the Core Central Region, 1.7% for the Rest of Central Region and 1.0% in the Outside Central Region compared to the previous quarter.
On a Year-on-year (YoY) basis, rents rose 3.0% for the 3-bedrooms but fell 2.3% for the 5-bedroom.
|
Average |
YOY |
QOQ |
|
1 bedroom |
0.4% |
-0.1% |
|
2 bedroom |
1.3% |
-0.1% |
|
3 bedroom |
3.0% |
1.2% |
|
4 bedroom |
0.8% |
1.6% |
|
5 bedroom |
-2.3% |
4.2% |
The strong QoQ performance for rents in the non-landed private housing market is mainly driven by seasonal factors and the completion of new condominiums. The start of the academic year for international schools has also traditionally been the booster for lease renewals and locational shifts amongst tenants with families.
The completion of 1,776 units of private residential housing units in the quarter also opened avenues for tenants to move into new units with modern common facilities, household appliances and bathroom fixtures. This “newness” factor may have pushed some to pay more in rent, take up an entire lease for themselves instead of sharing an apartment, or move from renting public flats to private ones.
Companies may soon begin taking remedial action to reduce operation costs even more significantly than before. Although the URA rental index had increased 2.4% year-to-date, the forecast for private residential rents is to remain flat for 2025, give or take some minor deviations from that baseline.
Alan Cheong, Executive Director, Research & Consultancy, Savills Singapore, “For 2026, although there will be more new completions, which has often contributed to lifting to rents due to the premium from the “newness” factor, this may be offset by the challenging business conditions. Overall, rents are expected to stay sideways.”