Who buys prime now.

Three years into the sixty percent Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty on foreign purchasers, the shape of Singapore’s prime residential market has settled into something quite different from its previous self. Foreign participation in new Core Central Region purchases has fallen by roughly sixty percent. Of the CCR non-landed homes bought by Singaporeans in 2025, about 64 percent were priced below S$2.5 million, a third between S$2.5 and S$5 million, and only three percent above S$5 million.

The old caricature of the prime district buyer, offshore, anonymous, price-insensitive, is gone. The marginal buyer in District 9 and 10 today is a Singaporean professional household, financing conventionally, comparing a new CCR two-bedroom against a larger city-fringe alternative. Developers have noticed: launches are being configured and priced to that buyer, with an emphasis on efficient units below the S$2.5 million line.

Two consequences follow, one for each side of the market.

For sellers of larger prime units, the honest news is that the pool for S$8 million condominiums is thinner than the pool for S$8 million landed property, because the foreigner who once anchored that segment now pays a sixty percent premium to enter, and the Singaporean at that budget usually prefers land. Pricing and process must reflect the true depth of the bid.

For buyers with unusual status, citizens repatriating, new permanent residents under remission-eligible structures, family offices acquiring through appropriate vehicles, the CCR condominium market currently offers what Singapore almost never offers: prime-postcode assets priced against domestic affordability rather than international competition. New CCR launches averaging around S$3,208 per square foot stand at an unusually narrow premium to the city fringe, and select resale stock trades below replacement cost.

Markets re-founded on domestic demand tend to be lower-beta and higher-floor. When the international bid eventually returns, in whatever policy form, it will return to a market that no longer needs it, which is precisely when it pays the most.

Zaiwealth advises buyers and sellers in Singapore’s prime districts, including structuring-sensitive acquisitions.