Will HDB Resale Prices Rise After the Wait-Out Period Removal?

HDB resale prices have just recorded two straight quarterly declines, and into that softening market the Government has released a group of buyers it deliberately held back for almost four years. The removal of the 15-month wait-out period on 28 July 2026 lets private property owners and former owners buy non-subsidised resale flats immediately, provided they skip the HDB loan.

So the question every seller and first-time buyer is asking: do HDB resale prices now head back up?

Where the market stood when the rule was lifted

The starting point matters. HDB's flash estimate for the second quarter of 2026 showed the Resale Price Index down 0.3%, after a 0.1% dip in the first quarter: the first consecutive quarterly declines in about seven years. Annual growth had already slowed from 10.4% in 2022 to 2.9% in 2025, according to the MND announcement accompanying the removal.

That moderation is supply-led: a ramped-up BTO programme and a growing pool of flats crossing their Minimum Occupation Period have given buyers options and taken away urgency. Our full review of HDB resale price trends in 2026 tracks how the market got here.

What the removal adds on the demand side

The wait-out period existed precisely because ex-private-property buyers move prices. They arrive with condo sale proceeds, borrow less, and can close faster than first-timer families saving toward a downpayment. The September 2022 cooling measures named moderating that demand as the goal.

Three groups return to the market at once:

• Right-sizers who postponed. Households that shelved a condo-to-flat move rather than rent for 15 months can now run the move in one step.
• Ex-owners mid-way through their wait. Anyone who sold private property since early 2025 and was sitting out the clock becomes a buyer today.
• Seniors above 55 who wanted larger flats. The old exemption only covered moves to 4-room or smaller; the ceiling is gone.

Nobody outside the Government knows how large this pent-up pool is, and we will not pretend to. The honest framing: it is a one-time release of deferred demand, plus a permanent widening of the buyer pool.

Why a repeat of 2021–2022 is unlikely

The conditions that produced double-digit growth are absent. Then, pandemic construction delays had choked BTO supply and pushed everyone into resale. Now the pipeline is the opposite: sustained BTO launches and rising MOP completions expand choice every quarter.

The removal also kept its guardrails. Returning buyers get no CPF housing grants, no HDB loan (the 30-month rule still applies to both), and must dispose of any private property within 6 months of completion. Financing through a bank keeps them inside the Total Debt Servicing Ratio, and flat ownership still cannot be stacked with a private property. The measure that was removed controlled when these buyers could enter, not how much they can distort once in.

The segments to watch

Demand from right-sizers is not evenly spread. A household leaving a condo rarely targets a 3-room flat in a non-mature town; it targets space and location. Expect the effect to concentrate in 4-room, 5-room and executive flats in mature and central estates, the same segment that produces million-dollar transactions. Sellers there gain negotiating room. Prices at the top end were already the market's most resilient, and this widens the gap between that segment and the rest.

For everyone else, the supply story still dominates. A 4-room flat in a non-mature town competes with a heavy BTO pipeline for the same buyers, and no ex-condo wave changes that.

Whether you should act on any of this depends entirely on which side of that divide your flat, or your target flat, sits. If you are selling a large flat in a mature estate, your pricing strategy probably deserves a rethink this month, and if you are a buyer in that segment, the window before the new demand shows up in the data is narrow. Talking through your specific block, price band and timeline with someone who watches these transactions daily costs you nothing.

What we would actually watch

Quarterly index moves will take time to show the effect. Earlier signals:

1. Cash-over-valuation patterns in mature estates: returning buyers with proceeds in hand can close valuation gaps first-timers cannot.
2. Time-on-market for larger flats: if 5-room and executive listings start moving faster while 3-room listings do not, the segmentation story is playing out.
3. The third-quarter flash estimate in October 2026, the first index reading with the rule change inside it.

Our view, stated plainly: the removal puts a floor under the segment right-sizers want and probably ends the index's gentle decline, but the supply pipeline should keep any rebound modest and uneven. That is not a prediction of fireworks. It is a reason for sellers of large mature-estate flats to be a little more patient, and for buyers in that one segment to be a little less so.

Sources: MND, removal of the 15-month wait-out period, HDB, flash estimate of 2nd quarter 2026 Resale Price Index, MAS, MND & HDB, September 2022 cooling measures.