Small condo units see steady demand but are harder to resell, data shows

When a French national living in Singapore put up her one-bedroom apartment for sale in 2022, private home prices were climbing and she expected a quick sale.

- Joyce Lim

Instead, the 732 sq ft leasehold unit at Marina Bay Residences sat on the market for three years.

Offers fell short of her expectations and the 51-year-old investor, who asked not to be named, eventually accepted $1.6 million in August 2025 — barely above the $1.55 million she had paid in 2016.

Her experience underscores the broader challenges some owners face in offloading one-bedder and studio apartments, which tend to be smaller and targeted at a niche demographic.

While demand for these smaller units has been steady, data and market observations show that they generally see slower price growth, take a longer time to resell than larger units, and net their owners less profit.

About one in four resale condominium transactions between 2019 and 2025 involved a studio or one-bedder unit, according to data from ERA Research and Market Intelligence and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

This data covered 146 non-landed private residential projects completed from 2000, which accounted for a total of 24,327 resale transactions.

Projects include both freehold and leasehold developments like Sophia Residence, One Amber, Marina Bay Residences, Reflections at Keppel Bay, Duo Residences, Martin Modern, JadeScape and One Pearl Bank.

To ensure meaningful comparisons, only projects with a significant number of sales were included. The threshold for inclusion was at least 50 transactions in the core central region (CCR) and 100 transactions in the rest of central region (RCR) and outside central region (OCR), said Ms Wong Shanting, head of research and market intelligence at ERA Singapore.