On July 28, 2026, National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat removed the 15-month wait-out period with immediate effect: private owners can buy a non-subsidised HDB resale flat without waiting, and must still sell their private home within six months of completion. HDB received about 1,800 waiver appeals a year and turned down three in four, so thousands of households were waiting to move. The timing follows a second straight quarterly HDB price decline, with 13,500 flats reaching MOP this year and 19,500 by 2028. The condos those buyers sell then come up for sale, adding supply to a resale market where sales were already slower than for new launches.
Sources: MND, CNA, The Business Times, AsiaOne, HDB, URA
Updated August 2026: reworked the private resale analysis and downgrader sequencing advice; added five-room seller pricing guidance.
What just changed
On the morning of July 28, 2026, National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat removed the 15-month wait-out period for private property owners buying HDB resale flats, with immediate effect. He announced it at the 11th Singapore Economic Review Conference at Orchard Hotel (CNA).
If you own a private home, or sold one recently, you no longer wait 15 months before buying a resale flat. The rule dated from the September 30, 2022 cooling package, introduced when COVID-era BTO construction delays left too many buyers chasing too few flats. The government called it temporary from day one. "As market conditions improved, we have assessed that the 15-month wait-out period has met its purpose and will be removed with immediate effect," Minister Chee said, per The Business Times.
HDB resale prices have been easing since the start of the year: the index slipped 0.1% in Q1 2026 and another 0.3% in Q2, the first back-to-back quarterly declines since 2019, after growth peaked at 10.4% in 2022. HDB published the Q2 figures on July 24, four days before the announcement.
Who skips the wait, and who still waits 30 months?
| Your situation | Before July 28, 2026 | From July 28, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Buying a non-subsidised resale flat, no HDB loan, no grants | 15-month wait after selling private | No wait |
| Aged 55+, moving to a 4-room or smaller resale flat | Exempt since 2022 | Exempt, unchanged |
| Buying a resale flat with CPF housing grants | 30-month wait | 30-month wait, unchanged |
| Buying a subsidised flat or a new EC from a developer | 30-month wait | 30-month wait, unchanged |
| Taking an HDB housing loan | 30-month wait | 30-month wait, unchanged |
| Selling your private property after buying the flat | Within 6 months of completion | Within 6 months, unchanged |
First, the removal covers non-subsidised resale purchases financed without an HDB housing loan: if your plan leans on grants or an HDB loan, your wait is still 30 months. Second, the six-month disposal rule is unchanged. Buy a flat while holding a condo and you must sell the condo within six months of completing the purchase. What went away is the forced sequence: under the old rule you sold first, then spent 15 months as a non-owner before you could buy. Now you can buy first and sell after, or sell first and buy straight away.
If you already hold a valid HDB Flat Eligibility letter and your plans are unchanged, nothing happens to you. HDB updates applications already in processing automatically.
How much downgrader demand was the wait-out holding back?
The closest thing to a count is the appeal queue. Since the measure started, HDB has processed about 1,800 appeals a year from private property owners asking to waive the wait-out. The Ministry of National Development called that number stable in a written parliamentary reply in 2025. HDB approved about 1 in 4, mainly for households in financial difficulty or extenuating circumstances with no alternative housing.
Across the measure's near-four-year life, that works out to roughly 7,000 appeals, more than 5,000 of them turned down. Around 1,350 households a year asked to skip the wait and were told no.
That number is a minimum, because appeals came only from households that could argue hardship. The ordinary downgrader had none. A couple in their fifties looking at the HDB-condo price gap that has doubled since 2016 usually has most of their money inside the condo, and reaching it means selling and moving somewhere cheaper. The old rule meant 15 months without a home in the middle of that move, so many waited, rented, or dropped the plan. Nobody has a precise count of this group. The appeals only show it runs into the thousands.
The timeline since 2022
| Date | Move |
|---|---|
| Sep 30, 2022 | 15-month wait-out imposed as BTO delays squeeze supply |
| 2021 to 2025 | 102,400 BTO flats launched, exceeding the 100,000 target |
| Jun 2025 | Minister Chee signals the wait-out could relax before 2027 |
| Mar 2026 | Parliament told the policy is under review, "prudent to monitor a while more" |
| Apr 1, 2026 | Q1 2026 flash estimate: first index decline in nearly 7 years |
| May 8, 2026 | EC reset: 10-year MOP, deferred payment scrapped, 90% first-timer quota |
| Jul 24, 2026 | Q2 2026 data: second straight decline, 0.3% down |
| Jul 28, 2026 | Wait-out removed with immediate effect |
The supply behind the timing is published. HDB expects flats reaching their Minimum Occupation Period to climb from about 8,000 units in 2025 to 13,500 this year, 15,000 in 2027 and 19,500 in 2028, with another 50,000 BTO flats launching between 2025 and 2027. When we covered the Q1 decline in April, we called the BTO programme the cooling measure that worked. The MOP supply is those same flats five years later, when their owners can first sell.
To be fair, we got the pace wrong in that April piece. We expected a staged cut, 15 months down to 9 or 12, and probably nothing before late 2026. The government removed it in one step instead, once the index had fallen two quarters in a row.
The same speech also stretched the ABSD sales deadline for large en bloc redevelopments: six years for sites of 700 or more units, seven years above 1,400. That makes the big en bloc deals we flagged in the 1H2026 land cost piece easier for developers to take on.
What happens to private resale prices now?
Every downgrader who buys a flat also sells a condo. Most sell concurrently or list the condo first, because buying the flat first puts the condo sale on the six-month disposal clock. Either way, each completed move adds one listing, and they keep coming through 2027 as the delayed moves go ahead.
Those condos join the slower half of what we described in April as a two-speed market: new launches clearing 80 to 90% on opening weekends while resale units sit unsold for months. More stock means more negotiating room for buyers.
New launches will not provide that room. Residential GLS plots were awarded at roughly $960 to $1,625 psf ppr across 2025 and 2026, per our 2H2026 GLS guide, and land bought at those rates keeps launch prices up no matter how many condos reach the resale market. If private prices cool anywhere, it is in resale.
That said, slower growth is more likely than falling prices. URA's private residential price index still rose 0.5% in Q2 2026, and downgraders cashing out a decade of gains are not distressed sellers. The listings also build gradually: four years of delayed moves do not all happen in one quarter. Condos near an MRT station keep their buyer pool through all of this. The extra negotiating room shows up further out.
What happens to HDB resale prices?
On the HDB side, the risk is that returning downgraders undo the correction. They carry condo proceeds, and in 2022 they were outbidding first-timers, which is why the wait-out was introduced.
The exemptions show where the new demand goes. Owners aged 55 and up could already buy a 4-room or smaller flat without waiting, so the buyers this rule was blocking want five-room, executive and jumbo flats, or are under 55. Volumes in the bigger flat types should move first. We will be watching the million-dollar flat count over the next two quarters.
A couple selling a condo to retire wants the same things they are leaving: an MRT nearby, a hawker centre downstairs. Five-room flats in mature estates will take most of the new attention, and those flats were already competing with fresh MOP supply.
The published numbers favour supply: 13,500 MOP flats this year against returning buyers measured in the thousands, rising toward 19,500 in 2028. The index moves a few months behind the deals, so the Q4 reading is the first that will show the effect. If it turns back up, a new cooling measure is the likely response.
If you are moving now
If you are downgrading: you can move today, and you can choose your order. Buy the flat first and you must sell your condo within six months of completing, which leaves you selling on a deadline. Sell the condo first, or do both concurrently, and your sale is never forced. That is how most downgraders move, and we would do the same: six months is not a long time to sell a condo well. Either way, this route needs no grants and no HDB loan; if your numbers depend on either, the 30-month wait still applies.
If you are selling a condo but not downgrading: more listings reach your market over the next year as downgraders sell. If you were planning to sell anyway, list before that supply arrives.
If you are buying a private resale condo: more stock is coming as downgraders sell. The negotiating room we described in April widens from here, especially in projects further from the MRT.
If you are selling an HDB flat: your buyer pool grew today, and the new buyers arrive with condo proceeds. This applies most to five-room and larger flats in mature estates near an MRT station. It is not a reason to raise your asking price this week: viewings will pick up before offers do. Watch what sells around you through Q4 before adjusting.
If you are a first-timer buying resale: the top end gets more competitive from today. The middle of the market is cushioned by MOP supply, and BTO remains the cheapest way in.
What we are watching
Three numbers through the rest of 2026: the Q3 HDB resale index, private resale listing volumes into Q4, and the million-dollar flat count. One more force joined in August: the income ceiling rose to $16,000, putting resale grants and HDB loans in the hands of about 79,000 more households, and it pushes resale demand the same way. Our Telegram group carries the shorter updates between long reads.
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Send us a topic on WhatsAppData sources: MND announcement July 28, 2026 (Minister Chee Hong Tat at the 11th Singapore Economic Review Conference), CNA, The Business Times, AsiaOne, HDB resale price index and MOP supply data, URA private residential price index Q2 2026, URA GLS tender records
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