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Your yearly return on a new launch

This tool simulates a new launch investment month by month — every cost included. For context, the median seller in our 149,329 real resale exits made 3.2% a year on price alone, before any of those costs. The tool counts what you pay upfront including stamp duty, the interest on each portion of the loan as it's released at each building stage, the rent after vacancy and costs, and what it costs to sell. That includes Seller's Stamp Duty, which now reaches 16% if you sell within the first year of purchase. The result is your yearly return on the cash you actually put in.

For reference: median price gain in our 149,329-pair dataset was 3.2% p.a. before any costs, while this tool's result already nets out every cost · 12.7% lost money · rates verified 8 Jul 2026

Purchase

S$
yrs

Loan

%
% p.a.
yrs

Hold, rent & exit

yrs
Total holding = years to TOP + this.
% p.a.
Median matched-exit gain is 3.2% p.a. Treat anything above 4% as optimistic — test 2% and 0% too. See the data.
S$
From TOP. Leave 0 for owner-stay / vacant.
Vacancy, maintenance & other costs (defaults pre-filled)
%
5% is a reasonable middle case if you're unsure — it works out to about 18 days a year. If your agent expects a longer or shorter gap between tenants, convert that into the same share of a year: for example, one month vacant a year is about 8%.
S$
Monthly, from TOP.
S$
Annual, from TOP. Non-owner-occupier rates apply if rented.
mo/yr
Agent fee as months of rent per year.
S$
S$
%

Three things you need to include to calculate an accurate return

Most quick calculations skip these three things.

The costs. A simple $1.8M-to-$2.3M comparison misses three costs: about $70,000 in stamp duty up front, years of loan interest along the way, and 2% commission plus legal fees when you sell.

The time it took. A 25% gain sounds the same over four years or fourteen. It isn't. Four years works out to 5.7% a year. Fourteen years works out to 1.6% — less than what your CPF Ordinary Account pays you (2.5%).

Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD). SSD is different from the other costs: wait past four years and you don't have to pay this. For a new launch, almost any exit before or around TOP still falls inside that four-year period.

This tool accounts for all three — the costs, the time it took, and SSD. It works out the cash flows month by month, using the same calculation engine as our payment schedule calculator.

What growth rate should you assume?

The Price appreciation field defaults to 3% a year — close to the actual median across 149,329 matched exits, which was 3.2%, including sellers who lost money. 12.7% sold at or below what they paid, with a median loss of $115,000. Treat 3% to 4% a year as a grounded base case, and test your numbers at 2% and 0% as well.

Based on 149,329 matched resale exits, grouped by region or by years held before resale. Loss rate = share of sales at or below purchase price. These are past results, not promises.
GroupMedian return a year% that lost money
All exits3.2%12.7%
Rest of Central Region3.8%—
Core Central Region3.7%—
Outside Central Region2.8%—
Held 7–10 years2.3%18.6%
Held 15+ years3.0%1.3%

Look up the actual rate for your district, holding period and entry type on our exit dashboard before typing a number here. A 6%-a-year assumption bets on a result most sellers never got — roughly one in eight sellers made a loss.

Frequently asked questions

How is the return worked out?

Start with what you receive on sale, after commission, legal fees and Seller's Stamp Duty. Take off the purchase price, the stamp duties, the renovation, the legal fees and all the loan interest. Add back the net rent you collected — rent left after vacancy, maintenance, property tax and the letting agent's fee. That is your total gain. The return divides that gain by the cash you put in. To get the yearly figure, that total return is spread evenly across the years you held it — from booking to sale.

Why is interest worked out month by month?

A new launch loan is released in stages as the building is completed, so early on you only pay interest on the portion already released. Estimating with a flat interest rate gets this wrong — too high before TOP, too low after. This tool follows the real stage-by-stage release and recalculates your instalment each time, the same way our payment schedule calculator does.

Does the calculator apply Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD)?

Yes, automatically. It works out your holding period — from booking to sale — and applies the SSD rates for purchases from 4 July 2025 onward: 16% in year one, 12% in year two, 8% in year three, 4% in year four, and none after that. If your exit falls inside that period, it's marked in red in the results.

What growth rate should I use?

Across our 149,329-pair dataset, the median exit made 3.2% a year before costs, counting winners and losers together. By area: 3.8% for Rest of Central Region, 3.7% for Core Central Region, 2.8% Outside Central. Holding period matters too — exits held 7 to 10 years made only 2.3% a year, with the worst loss rate at 18.6%; those held beyond 15 years made 3.0%, with a loss rate of just 1.3%. As a starting point, use 3% to 4% a year, and test your numbers again at 2% and 0%. Enter your assumption in the Price appreciation field above — it drives the projected sale price.

Is income tax on the rent included?

No — rental income tax isn't included. It's taxed at your personal income tax rate, or a flat 24% if you're not a Singapore tax resident, and all the figures here are calculated before income tax. Property tax is a separate, smaller charge, and this calculator already accounts for it through the Property tax field.

Disclaimer This calculator produces illustrative projections, not investment advice and not a prediction of returns. Outcomes depend on assumptions you control — rental rates, occupancy, price growth, interest rates and holding period — and on costs this tool simplifies, such as maintenance fees staying flat over time and repairs not being modeled, plus income tax on rental. Past market performance does not guarantee future results, and property values can fall. Seek independent financial advice before making any investment decision. PropertyInsider.sg disclaims liability for decisions made on the basis of this tool.

Talk it through with an advisor

A calculator gives you the number; it can't tell you what to do with it. If you want to work through what these figures mean for your own situation — budget, ABSD position, timing an HDB sale, or comparing launches against resale options — you can request a one-to-one consultation.

  • No obligation. The first conversation is about your goals.
  • Affordability and stamp duty worked out on your actual numbers.
  • Launch and tender alerts for the projects you shortlist.

Disclosure: advisory consultations are provided by Jamus Lee (CEA Reg. No. R065771E, ERA Realty Network Pte Ltd, Licence No. L3002382K), the publisher of PropertyInsider.sg, via JamusProperty.com. This is a separate service from our editorial research and has no influence over what we publish. See our editorial policy. Submitting this form shares your details with the advisory practice; see our privacy policy.

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