Bukit Merah HDB Resale 2026: The Town That Holds Singapore’s National Record
By Gary Lim · ERA Senior Division Director · BuyCondo Team · Updated 31 August 2026
Bukit Merah at a glance
The $1.728m flat that reset the national record
Five records in nine months — the full staircase
One postcode, three markets
Live block data: what buyers actually paid
Why Bukit Merah, and why now
The supply math sellers should understand
Who should buy here — and who should sell
My verdict
FAQ
The most expensive HDB resale flat in Singapore’s history is not in Queenstown. Not in Toa Payoh. Not at Pinnacle@Duxton.
It’s in Bukit Merah. A 5-room flat at City Vue @ Henderson sold for $1.728 million in April 2026, and as I write this at the end of August, nothing has beaten it. If you’re tracking the Bukit Merah HDB resale market — as a seller sitting on a flat here, or a buyer wondering whether these prices make any sense — this is the deep dive I’d want you to read before doing anything.
I’ve spent 17+ years and 500+ transactions in this business, and Bukit Merah is one of the most misunderstood towns in Singapore. People hear “national record” and picture one uniform, expensive estate. The reality: this is three completely different markets wearing one postcode. A $430,000 3-room market. A $1.7 million tower market. And a heritage walk-up market where a flat with 45 years of lease left just sold for $1.53 million. Same town. I’ll show you all three — with live transaction data, not vibes.
Bukit Merah HDB Resale at a Glance (August 2026)
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Town median (all flat types, 12-mth) | ~$790,000 |
| 3-room median (12-mth) | ~$430,000 (316 txns) |
| 4-room median (12-mth) | ~$930,000 (409 txns) |
| 5-room median (12-mth) | ~$1.08m (193 txns); official Q1 2026 median $1.085m — top 3 nationally |
| Million-dollar deals, Q2 2026 | 64 — No. 3 town in Singapore (behind Toa Payoh 66, Queenstown 65) |
| Town record | $1.728m — the NATIONAL record (City Vue @ Henderson, Apr 2026) |
| 12-month volume | ~960 resale transactions |
Medians are 12-month rolling figures compiled late Aug 2026; official quarterly medians from HDB’s Q1 2026 release. Figures move monthly — treat as a snapshot, not a bible.
The $1.728m Flat That Reset the National Record
Let’s start with the deal everyone quotes and nobody unpacks.
April 2026: a 5-room flat at Block 96A Henderson Road — City Vue @ Henderson — sells for $1.728 million. It’s 1,216 sq ft, on the 46th to 48th storey band, with 92 years and 1 month left on the lease. That works out to roughly $1,421 psf, which would have been respectable money for a condo in some parts of Singapore not long ago. It beat the previous national benchmark — $1.7 million at 92 Dawson Road in Queenstown, set just two months earlier in February 2026.
Here’s what makes this record different from most: it wasn’t a freak deal. Look at the same block’s history and you’ll see the market walking up to it, step by step. In June 2024, a unit in the same 46-48 storey stack sold for $1.588 million. Twenty-two months later, the record unit went for $140,000 more — about 8.8% higher — during a stretch when the national HDB Resale Price Index actually fell for two straight quarters (−0.1% in Q1, −0.3% in Q2 2026). The broad market softened. The top of Bukit Merah kept climbing.
Why? City Vue @ Henderson is a 2018-completed project — lease from 2019 — with blocks running 40 to 48 storeys at the junction of Henderson Road and Tiong Bahru Road. City fringe, Redhill and Tiong Bahru MRT both within reach, CBD and Orchard minutes away, and from the 46th floor, views the private market would price at $3,000+ psf. Its flats only started clearing their Minimum Occupation Period around 2024, so what you’re watching is a first wave of near-new, ultra-central, high-floor stock hitting a market that has almost nothing else like it. That combination is what buyers paid up for — and it’s the same young-and-central formula I covered in my newly-MOP vs older resale piece.
Five Records in Nine Months — the Full Bukit Merah Staircase
The $1.728m headline is the summit, but the climb tells you more. Here’s the record staircase for Bukit Merah HDB resale deals since late 2025 — every one of these was a record of some kind when it happened:
| Date | Block / project | Type | Price | What it was |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 9A Boon Tiong Rd (31–33 flr) | 5R, 1,206 sqft | $1.58m | Town 5R record at the time |
| Jan 2026 | 96A Henderson Rd (34–36 flr) | 5R, 1,216 sqft | $1.53m | City Vue warming up |
| Mar 2026 | 9A Boon Tiong Rd (25–27 flr) | 5R, 1,206 sqft | $1,648,888 | New town 5R record ($1,368 psf) |
| Apr 2026 | 96A Henderson Rd (46–48 flr) | 5R, 1,216 sqft | $1.728m | NATIONAL HDB resale record |
| May 2026 | 50 Moh Guan Terrace (1–3 flr) | 4R jumbo, 1,615 sqft | $1.53m | National 4R record at the time — on a 45-year lease |
Five record-class deals in nine months, from three very different corners of one town. And the national top-five board now reads: Bukit Merah $1.728m (Apr 26), Queenstown $1.70m (Feb 26), Queenstown $1,658,888 (Jun 25), Bishan $1.65m executive maisonette (Aug 26), Queenstown $1.65m (Jun 26). One of these towns is not like the others — Queenstown earned its spots from one precinct (Dawson), while Bukit Merah took the crown with its second-string blocks still setting records of their own.
That Moh Guan Terrace deal deserves a pause, because it breaks every rule buyers think they know. A ground-floor flat. A 1973 lease with less than 46 years left. And it sold for $1.53 million — briefly the most expensive 4-room flat ever sold in Singapore, edging the previous Pinnacle@Duxton benchmark, before a $1.55m Pinnacle deal took the 4-room title back weeks later. What the Moh Guan buyer paid for was 1,615 sq ft of jumbo layout at $947 psf in the heart of heritage Tiong Bahru — space that simply does not exist in any modern flat, in a conservation neighbourhood people queue to live in. Lease decay is real (I’m not waving it away — more below), but this deal is proof that scarcity of format can outbid scarcity of lease.
One Postcode, Three Markets
Here’s the framing that makes Bukit Merah HDB resale prices finally make sense. Stop thinking of it as one market. It’s three:
| Market | Where | Typical stock | Price zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The new towers | Henderson, Boon Tiong, Kim Tian, Havelock | 2016–2019 leases, 25–48 storeys, 88–92 yrs left | 4R $1.0–1.35m · 5R $1.4–1.73m |
| 2. Old Bukit Merah | Redhill, Bukit Ho Swee, Telok Blangah side, Jln Bukit Merah | 1970s–80s leases, smaller formats, incl. rare 1R/2R stock | 2R ~$290k · 3R ~$430k · older 4R $600–800k |
| 3. Heritage Tiong Bahru | Moh Guan Ter, Guan Chuan St, seng-poh conservation belt | Pre-war/1970s walk-ups, jumbos to 1,600+ sqft, ~45–50 yrs left | 3R $750k+ · jumbo 4R to $1.53m |
The spread inside this one town is wider than the spread between most towns: a $290,000 2-room flat and the $1.728 million national record share the same town council. For buyers, that’s opportunity — the ~$430,000 3-room median makes Bukit Merah one of the cheapest ways in Singapore to live 10 minutes from Raffles Place, precisely because the leases are short and the market prices that honestly. For sellers in the towers, it means your comps are not “Bukit Merah” comps. They’re your block, your stack, your floor band. Which brings me to the data.
Live Block Data: What Buyers Actually Paid
I pulled the lodged caveats for the three headline blocks (all figures from data.gov.sg records, via the live block pages on Listings.sg — links below so you can check them yourself).
Block 96A Henderson Road (City Vue @ Henderson, lease 2019)
27 lodged resales; median around $1.22m across all types. The floor ladder is brutal and beautiful: in January 2026 a 34–36-storey 5-roomer went for $1.53m; three months later the 46–48-storey unit took $1.728m — roughly $198,000 for twelve floors. Meanwhile the same block’s 4-roomers traded at $938k–$970k this spring. If you own high here, you own something genuinely rare. If you own low, do not price off the record — the market won’t follow you. See the full history at the Blk 96A block page.
Block 9A Boon Tiong Road (lease 2016)
The town’s other trophy block. Its 5-room record: $1,648,888 in March 2026 (25–27 floor). The same month, a low-floor 5-roomer in the same block went for $1.45m — a ~$199,000 gap between floor bands, same block, same month. In May, a ground-floor 4-roomer traded at exactly $1.0m. Three flats, one block, three different markets in miniature.
Block 50 Moh Guan Terrace (lease 1973)
Thin volume — heritage stock barely trades. A 3-roomer went for $750k in Dec 2024; the 1,615 sqft jumbo took $1.53m in May 2026; and back in June 2023 an even bigger 176 sqm jumbo sold for $1.5m. When only a handful of these exist, each sale is the market.
This is exactly why I tell owners: before you anchor on a headline, get a proper valuation off your own block’s data. You can request a free valuation from my team, and if you’re doing your own sums on affordability or sale proceeds, run the numbers with the free calculators at listings.sg/tools.
Why Bukit Merah, and Why Now
Four forces are stacking on this town at once.
1. The million-dollar market has gone mainstream — and Bukit Merah is a podium town. Singapore logged a record 491 million-dollar HDB resales in Q2 2026 — 902 in the first half, up about 18% on H1 2025 — and Bukit Merah’s 64 deals put it third nationally, behind only Toa Payoh (66) and Queenstown (65). This is no longer a novelty market; it’s a segment, and Bukit Merah is structurally inside it. (I broke down the island-wide numbers in my million-dollar HDB piece [DRAFT — swap when live].)
2. The wait-out removal reopened the downgrader tap. Since 28 July 2026, private owners no longer wait 15 months to buy a resale flat. For a city-fringe town like this, that matters disproportionately: the buyer who just sold a $2.5m condo and wants to stay near town with $1m+ in the bank is exactly the profile bidding for high-floor City Vue and Boon Tiong stock. I covered the mechanics in my wait-out period analysis.
3. Official medians already put Bukit Merah in the top tier. In HDB’s Q1 2026 data, Bukit Merah’s 5-room median hit $1.085m — one of only three towns above $1m for 5-rooms, alongside Toa Payoh ($1.1m) and Ang Mo Kio ($1.09m). The record deals are the froth; the medians are the tide.
4. The Greater Southern Waterfront is this town’s long game. Bukit Merah and Telok Blangah sit in the front row of the GSW redevelopment — the long-term transformation of the Keppel Club land and the southern port corridor into a new waterfront district. Timelines stretch over decades and I won’t pretend anyone knows the sequencing, but ask yourself: which existing HDB town borders that entire story? This one.
The Supply Math Sellers Should Understand
Now the part almost nobody prices in: what new supply is coming to compete with your resale flat?
The last meaningful BTO injection here was the August 2022 exercise (Alexandra Vale and Havelock Hillside). Those buyers predate the Standard/Plus/Prime framework, so they carry the classic 5-year MOP — meaning their flats reach the resale market around 2031–2032 at the earliest, based on typical completion timelines. Anything launched in Bukit Merah from late 2024 onward falls under the new framework, and a town this central will be classified Plus or Prime — 10-year MOP, subsidy clawback, tighter resale conditions. Those flats won’t compete with you until the 2040s.
Put plainly: if you own a young resale flat in Bukit Merah’s towers today, you’re selling into a window where your competition is roughly fixed for the next five years, and the wave after that arrives handcuffed. That scarcity runway — the same math I walked through for Queenstown [DRAFT — swap when live] and Toa Payoh [DRAFT — swap when live] — is the structural case under the records.
The honest counterweight: the broad market is soft. The RPI fell two quarters running into mid-2026, transaction medians island-wide are drifting, and buyers at $1.5m+ are a thin crowd who compare your flat against actual condos. Records coexist with softness because the record stock is scarce and the ordinary stock is not. Price accordingly.
A note for landlords
One under-discussed angle: Bukit Merah is a landlord’s town hiding inside a headline-seller’s town. Central-region 4-room flats have been renting at some of the strongest medians in the country (around the mid-$4,000s a month in recent quarters), and the tenant pool here — CBD professionals, Outram medical staff, Tiong Bahru lifestyle renters — is deep and resilient. An older 4-room bought in the $600–800k band can gross a yield the tower blocks can’t touch, precisely because the entry price is lower for near-identical rentability. If you’re weighing sell-versus-rent on an inherited or fully-paid older flat here, run the whole-flat rental math before defaulting to a sale — my team manages exactly these situations end-to-end, and the calculators at listings.sg/tools will give you the gross-versus-net picture in minutes.
Who Should Buy Here — and Who Should Sell
| You are… | My take |
|---|---|
| A buyer who wants central on a budget | Old Bukit Merah 3-rooms around $430k are arguably the best central value in Singapore — go in with eyes open on lease (check CPF and loan limits against the remaining lease before you fall in love). |
| An upgrader-family buyer eyeing the towers | You’re paying condo-adjacent psf for high-floor stock. Fair — but only if you’ll hold 8–10 years. Compare seriously against resale condos at the same quantum first. |
| A tower owner (Henderson / Boon Tiong / Kim Tian) | High floor: this is a genuine seller’s window — thin competition, record comps, reopened downgrader demand. Mid/low floor: sell on your stack’s comps, not the town’s headlines. |
| A heritage Tiong Bahru owner | Your market is thin and emotional — one right buyer beats ten viewings. Marketing and patience matter more than timing. |
| An old-stock owner thinking “records = my flat too” | Gently: no. The record economy lives in specific blocks. Get a block-level valuation before setting expectations. |
Bukit Merah in 2026 is Singapore’s most extreme one-town spread: a $290k 2-room and the $1.728m national record under one town council. The record economy is real but lives in a handful of young, high-floor, city-fringe blocks with a supply runway to the 2030s — if you own that stock, this is a legitimate window to sell into thin competition. Everyone else in the town should trade on block data, not headlines. And buyers: the unloved $430k 3-room end of this town is quietly one of the best central-living deals in the country. 新加坡买房，就找对的团队 — we serve with heart.
FAQ: Bukit Merah HDB Resale
What is the most expensive HDB flat ever sold in Bukit Merah?
A 5-room flat at Block 96A Henderson Road (City Vue @ Henderson) sold for $1.728 million in April 2026 — the national HDB resale record as of end-August 2026, not just the town record.
What are typical Bukit Merah HDB resale prices in 2026?
Rolling 12-month medians as of late August 2026: 3-room ~$430k, 4-room ~$930k, 5-room ~$1.08m, with a town-wide median around $790k. The spread around those medians is huge — young tower blocks trade far above, 1970s stock below.
Why are City Vue @ Henderson flats so expensive?
Near-new leases (from 2019), 40–48 storey blocks, city-fringe location between Tiong Bahru and Redhill MRT, and views private buyers pay $3,000+ psf for. The flats only began clearing MOP around 2024, so supply is a trickle.
Is it safe to buy an older Bukit Merah flat with a short lease?
It can make sense for the right buyer at the right price — the market already discounts short leases heavily. But check CPF usage and loan limits against the remaining lease first, and be realistic that depreciation continues. The $1.53m Moh Guan jumbo is a scarcity exception, not a template.
Is Bukit Merah a good place to sell an HDB flat right now?
For young, high-floor tower stock: yes — record comps, thin competition, and downgrader demand reopened by the July 2026 wait-out removal. For older stock, the broad market has softened two quarters running, so pricing off your block’s actual data matters more than ever.
How many million-dollar flats does Bukit Merah transact?
64 in Q2 2026 alone — third-highest of any town, behind Toa Payoh (66) and Queenstown (65), in a record national quarter of 491 million-dollar deals.
Will the Greater Southern Waterfront lift Bukit Merah prices?
Over the long run, it’s hard to argue against being the HDB town closest to the biggest waterfront redevelopment in Singapore’s pipeline — but timelines run in decades. Treat GSW as a tailwind for holders, not a reason to overpay today.
I’ll pull your block’s live transaction data and give you an honest number — whether it’s a “sell now” or a “hold, lah”.
Related reading: HDB Resale Prices 2026 · Newly-MOP vs Older Resale HDB · DBSS Flats Singapore [DRAFT — swap when live] · HDB Valuation 2026 [DRAFT — swap when live] · Best Time to Sell HDB [DRAFT — swap when live] · video hub at buyers.sg
Source for the record transaction: EdgeProp’s report on the $1.728m Henderson Road sale.
Gary Lim is a Senior Division Director at ERA (CEA Reg. No. R009877B) with 17+ years in Singapore real estate and over 500 transactions closed. He leads the BuyCondo Team, serving families upgrading, right-sizing and investing across Singapore — with deep roots in the D19/D20 corridor and a hands-on property-management service for landlords. 新加坡买房，就找对的团队。
Disclaimer: This article represents my personal views and analysis based on data available as of 31 August 2026. It is general information, not financial or investment advice. Property transactions involve significant sums — always do your own due diligence. Gary Lim, ERA Realty Network Pte Ltd, CEA Reg. No. R009877B. Agency Licence No. L3002382K.
