SgPropertyInvesting guide

Is a second condo still worth it after 20% ABSD?

For a Singapore Citizen, a second home now costs 20% more on day one. We run the numbers on a $1.5m condo held for five years to see how much price growth you need just to break even.

Last checked against official sources: 15 October 2026 (IRAS, MAS, URA via SingStat). General information only, not financial, legal or tax advice.

The buyer

A Singapore Citizen, aged 45, who already owns a home with a loan on it. They buy a $1.5m, 1,000 sq ft condo to rent out, take a bank loan over 20 years and sell after five years.

What you pay on day one

Stamp duties are on the higher of price or valuation. BSD is 1% to 6% in bands and ABSD for a Citizen's second home is 20% (IRAS, rates from 27 Apr 2023). See our ABSD guide for the other buyer profiles.

Why only a 45% loan? With one housing loan already outstanding, MAS caps a second loan at 45% of the price, and the tenure has to end by age 65 to get that much. The minimum cash downpayment is 25% (MAS, checked 15 Oct 2026). That's $675,000 over 20 years. At a 1.8% rate it's $3,351 a month. Check what you can borrow under TDSR in our mortgage calculator. Banks test it at a 4% interest rate, whatever rate they actually charge you.

Rent and running costs

For rent we've used a real figure: URA's median for a 1,000 sq ft unit at Treasure at Tampines (District 18). The $1.5m price is just the purchase price for this worked example. It isn't a claim about what units there sell for, so check URA's transaction prices for the project before relying on any yield. URA's median rent for the project in 2Q 2026 was $5.16 psf a month, from 168 rental contracts (25th to 75th percentile: $4.87 to $5.51). That works out to $5,160 a month for 1,000 sq ft. Source: URA, Rentals of Non-Landed Residential Buildings, Quarterly (data.gov.sg, updated 27 Jul 2026). It happens to equal the median across all 621 projects URA reported that quarter. Your unit's rent will depend on its size, floor and condition.

• Rent for a year: $61,920, which is a 4.13% gross yield.
• Property tax at non-owner-occupied rates on an Annual Value of $61,920: $11,491. That's 12% on the first $30,000, 20% on the next $15,000, 28% on the next $15,000 and 36% above $60,000 (IRAS, from 1 Jan 2024). We've assumed the Annual Value equals a year's rent. IRAS sets the real figure from estimated market rent, and you can find it on myTax Portal.
• Maintenance at $350 a month, one empty month a year and half a month's rent a year in agent fees, which brings the total yearly costs to $23,431.
• Net yield: 2.57%, before mortgage interest.

Selling after five years

Five years is past the Seller's Stamp Duty window. For homes bought on or after 4 July 2025 SSD runs for four years, at 16%, 12%, 8% and 4% (IRAS). Selling in year four would cost 4% of the sale price.

We tested three growth rates, all taken from URA's private residential price index for non-landed homes (SingStat M212261, updated 24 Jul 2026):

Profit here is the sale price, minus the loan still owing, a 2% agent fee plus GST, and legal costs. Add five years of net rent ($192,444), then take off everything paid upfront and every instalment ($201,069). It ignores CPF accrued interest and income tax on rent.

The break-even number

With these inputs, prices need to rise about 3.1% a year for five years before you make a dollar. Without the ABSD, the same purchase would break even even if prices dipped slightly. So the $300,000 tax effectively costs you about three percentage points of growth a year.

The index has beaten 3.1% over the last five and ten years. It doesn't do so in every region, though. Core Central Region non-landed prices rose 2.24% a year from 2Q 2016 to 2Q 2026. The Outside Central Region rose 5.65% (same source, M212271). An index also tracks the whole market, not your unit. Past growth tells you nothing certain about the next five years.

Ways people reduce the hit

• Sell first, or sell within six months. A married couple where at least one spouse is a Citizen, buying jointly, can get the ABSD refunded if they sell their first home within six months (IRAS). That turns this into an upgrade, not an investment.
• Hold longer. The fixed cost is spread over more years. It's still a bet on growth.
• Compare against other uses of the money. $1.17m up front is a lot of capital tied up for a 2.6% net yield.

Try your own numbers in the property calculator. It can fill in a historical growth rate from URA and HDB data for the region or town you pick, and you can change it. Spotted a wrong figure? Email [email protected].