What a resale flat really costs to buy
The number on the listing is the loudest cost, not the only one. Four others move real money on completion day - and only some of them are allowed to come out of your CPF.
You have agreed on $600,000 for a four-room flat. So you need $600,000, give or take? Not quite. Some of that price is a loan you repay over decades, not cash you produce now. Meanwhile several costs that never appear on the listing - stamp duty, the option cheque, fees - do have to be found upfront. And a different question sits underneath all of it: which of these can come from your CPF, and which must be cold, hard cash?
Sort the price into its real pieces and the picture gets clearer, and usually less frightening. Here is the same $600,000 flat, broken into what you actually hand over and where each part comes from.
| Cost | Amount | Paid from |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase price | $600,000 | |
| Downpayment (25%) | $150,000 | CPF / cash |
| incl. option fee + deposit, paid first | up to $5,000 | Cash |
| Housing loan (75%) | $450,000 | Loan, repaid monthly |
| Buyer's Stamp Duty | $12,600 | CPF (cash first) |
| Valuation (Request for Value) | $120 | Cash |
| Conveyancing (HDB solicitor) | ~$1,000–$1,500 | CPF |
| Upfront, excluding the loan | ~$163,700 | mostly CPF |
The loan aside, you are looking at roughly $164,000 to bring a $600,000 flat to completion - and for a first-timer household, grants can give a large slice of that back. But the more useful split isn't price versus fees. It is cash versus CPF, because that is what actually catches people short.
The cash nobody budgets for
Most of the big money - the bulk of the downpayment, the stamp duty, the legal fee - can be drawn from your CPF Ordinary Account. That is a relief, but it hides a trap: a handful of costs cannot touch CPF and have to be actual cash in your bank.
When you take the Option to Purchase, you pay the seller an option fee of up to $1,000; when you exercise it, you top that up to a deposit that, by HDB's rules, can total up to $5,000 - all in cash. The Request for Value, HDB's valuation step, costs a fixed $120, also cash. If you engage a buyer's agent, their commission - commonly around 1% plus GST of the price, so roughly $6,500 on this flat - is cash too. None of these is enormous on its own, but together they are five figures that CPF will not cover.
The one that surprises people most is cash-over-valuation. If the agreed price sits above HDB's valuation, the gap can be paid with neither CPF nor loan. Every dollar of it is cash - so a flat priced well over its valuation can quietly demand tens of thousands more in the bank than the sticker suggests.
This is why the price you offer and the flat's valuation matter so much together. Your loan and your CPF are both sized off the lower of price or valuation; anything above it is on you, in cash. Reading where a fair price sits is a skill in itself - we cover it in how to tell if an asking price is fair.
The downpayment: a quarter of the price, and where it hides
You can borrow up to 75% of the price (or valuation, if lower), which leaves a 25% downpayment - $150,000 on our flat. The good news for most HDB buyers: on an HDB loan at 2.6%, that entire 25% may come from CPF, so it need not be cash at all. On a bank loan the split is stricter - at least 5% of the price must be cash (about $30,000 here), with the rest from CPF or cash.
So the honest cash floor depends on your loan. With an HDB loan and enough CPF, a first-timer couple can reach completion on this flat with only the deposit, the $120 valuation, an agent fee if any, and any cash-over-valuation actually leaving their bank account. With a bank loan, add that 5%. What your income and savings can actually support - the real ceiling - is what the affordability calculator works out under the MSR, TDSR and LTV rules.
Stamp duty: the tax that lands on top
Buyer's Stamp Duty is charged on the higher of price or valuation, on a tiered scale. On $600,000 it comes to $12,600, built up like this:
| Band | Rate | Duty |
|---|---|---|
| First $180,000 | 1% | $1,800 |
| Next $180,000 | 2% | $3,600 |
| Next $240,000 | 3% | $7,200 |
| Total on $600,000 | $12,600 |
For a standard HDB purchase that is the whole stamp-duty story: Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty is 0% for a Citizen buying their first property, and you generally cannot own another property and buy an HDB flat anyway. If ABSD ever does apply to your situation, the stamp duty calculator works out both parts.
Grants: real money, but it flows into CPF
Costs run one way; for a first-timer household, grants run the other. They are the reason the net cost of a first flat is often far below the gross. A first-timer Citizen couple buying a four-room resale flat, within the income ceiling, can receive the CPF Housing Grant of up to $80,000, plus an income-tiered Enhanced CPF Housing Grant of up to $120,000, plus a Proximity Housing Grant of $20,000 to $30,000 if they buy near or with family.
The catch in the good news: grants are paid into your CPF, not your pocket. They can cover a big share of that downpayment, which is exactly what makes a first flat reachable - but they do nothing for the cash costs above. Which grants you qualify for, and how much, comes down to who is buying, the flat size and your income; the grant eligibility checker runs the published rules, and your exact Enhanced Grant is confirmed in your HFE letter.
The full cost checklist, by where the money comes from
- Cash you truly need. Option fee and deposit (up to $5,000), the $120 valuation, agent commission if any, plus - for a bank loan - 5% of the price. And every dollar of any cash-over-valuation.
- CPF (or cash) covers the rest of the downpayment. Up to the full 25% on an HDB loan; on a bank loan, whatever is left after the 5% cash floor.
- Stamp duty and legal fees. Reimbursable from CPF, but budget to pay the stamp duty in cash first. On $600,000 that is $12,600 in duty and roughly $1,000 to $1,500 in HDB conveyancing.
- The loan is not upfront cost. Up to 75% of the price is borrowed and repaid monthly - size the instalment to your income, not to today's bank balance.
- Count grants back in, but into CPF. For a first-timer household they can offset most of the downpayment - just not the cash costs, and never as cash in hand.
The price tells you what to borrow. The cash-versus-CPF split tells you whether you can actually complete. Get that split right before you sign, and completion day holds no surprises.
Put your own numbers through it
See what flats really sell for by town and flat type, then run your income, savings and CPF through the affordability calculator to find the price you can actually support.