The financing layer of every property decision

In this section

• Rates Tracker

  Singapore mortgage rates

  16 indicative packages across 7 lenders — 1M SORA, 3M SORA and board rates from 1.35% p.a., with the conversion and offset features that matter for new launch buyers.

  Updated 6 Jul 2026
• Borrowing Rules

  TDSR: how much can you borrow?

  The 55% threshold and 4% stress test in plain English, with income-to-loan lookup tables and the true cost of existing debt.

  In Buyer Guides · Updated 8 Jul 2026
• Coming Soon

  Stamp duty: BSD, ABSD & SSD

  Every duty tier, remission condition and worked example — plus the calculator.

  In preparation
• Coming Soon

  Using CPF for property

  OA usage limits, accrued interest, valuation limits and refund mechanics on sale.

  In preparation

How Singapore property financing actually works

Three regulatory dials, all set by MAS, determine what any household can spend, and it pays to know which one binds you before you start viewing. The Loan-to-Value limit caps a first housing loan at 75% of price or valuation, whichever is lower — so 25% must come from cash and CPF, with at least 5% in cash for a private purchase. The Total Debt Servicing Ratio caps all monthly debt at 55% of gross income, computed at a 4% stress rate rather than the package rate you actually pay. And for HDB flats and new executive condominiums only, the Mortgage Servicing Ratio further caps the housing instalment at 30% of income. For cash-light, income-strong households the LTV usually binds; for indebted or variable-income households, TDSR does. Our TDSR guide turns these rules into lookup tables.

On top of the price sit the transaction taxes. Buyer's Stamp Duty is tiered from 1% to 6% and works out to roughly 3–4% on typical private purchase quantums — about $89,600 on a $2.4 million condo. Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty depends on residency and property count at the moment of purchase, which is why transaction sequencing dominates upgrade planning: sell-first households pay zero, buy-first households front the second-property rate and claim remission later if eligible. Seller's Stamp Duty claws back a percentage from anyone selling within the first few years of purchase — a structural reason Singapore private property rewards holding periods, a pattern visible throughout our price trends data.

Rates: the SORA landscape

Since SIBOR's retirement, floating home loans are priced off SORA — the MAS-published overnight average — as a compounded 1-month or 3-month benchmark plus the bank's spread, while board-rate packages price off each bank's internal reference. As at our 6 July 2026 compilation, first-year package rates run from 1.35% to 2.38%, with board packages undercutting SORA at the bottom of the range. The full table, sorted cheapest-first with each package's conversion and offset features, is on the mortgage rates page.

New launch loans are different

A loan on a building under construction does not disburse on day one. It draws down progressively as construction milestones certify — foundation, framework, walls, ceilings, windows, car park, TOP, CSC — so the monthly instalment starts at a few hundred dollars and reaches full size only at legal completion, three to four years in. This changes which package features matter: a free conversion at TOP is effectively a free reprice at the exact moment the loan reaches full size, and a cancellation-fee waiver on the undisbursed portion protects anyone who sells mid-construction. The complete stage-by-stage cash flow, with a worked $2.4 million example, is in our new launch payment guide.

The one number to hold onto

If you remember a single figure from this section, make it the 4% stress rate. It is the bridge between the cheap packages banks advertise and the loan they will actually approve — and it is the honest test of whether a purchase survives a less friendly rate environment. A household whose budget only works at 1.4% does not have a budget; it has a bet.