Hold, or swap?
Keeping what you own, against selling it and buying something larger. The growth rate is the part everyone argues about. The costs underneath it are the part that decides the answer.
Example figures — type your ownWhere they stand today
How the funding figure is reached
Two sums, side by side. What the purchase costs to complete, and what the sale actually releases once the bank and everyone else has been paid. The gap between them is what has to be found.
The two properties
Shared assumptions
Property tax is charged on Annual Value, not price. AV tracks market rent.
What happens over time
Price per sq ft
After the holding period
Is the bigger unit worth it?
From today to the day they sell
Everything from today to the day they sell. Money in is positive, money out is negative, and the middle column is always the swap column minus the hold column — so a positive difference always means "more on the right". Borrowing is not spending, so only the interest on it appears as a cost.
| Line | A | Difference | C |
|---|
Assumptions discussed
Typed here, this prints with the rest of the sheet.
Rates, sources and what this does not do
Property tax — IRAS, progressive on Annual Value
Owner-occupier bands effective 1 Jan 2025: 0% to $12,000, then 4%, 6%, 10%, 14%, 20%, 26%, and 32% above
$140,000. Non-owner-occupier bands effective 1 Jan 2024: 12% to $30,000, then 20%, 28%, and 36% above $60,000.
Each rate applies only to the slice of AV inside its band. Checked against the IRAS worked example: an AV of
$84,000, owner-occupied, gives $5,480.
Buyer's Stamp Duty — progressive on price
1% on the first $180,000, 2% on the next $180,000, 3% on the next $640,000, 4% on the next $500,000, 5% on the next $1.5m, 6% above $3m. ABSD is entered as a rate because it depends on residency and on how many properties you already hold — a Singapore citizen buying one home after selling another is normally 0%.
Seller's Stamp Duty
For residential property bought on or after 4 July 2025 the holding period is four years: 16%, 12%, 8%, 4%, then nil. Property held beyond that pays none, which is why the default here is zero.
Where each assumption lives
Anything belonging to one property — its price, rent, vacancy, letting fee, the marginal tax rate applied to its rent, and the commission charged when it is sold — sits on that property's own card. Only the three that must be identical for a like-for-like comparison are shared: the holding period, how Annual Value grows, and how fast maintenance rises. Legal fees on exit are taken at a flat S$3,000 per sale.
Rental income
Rent is entered gross and grows at the same rate as Annual Value, since AV is IRAS's estimate of market rent. Vacancy comes off first, then the letting agent fee on what is actually collected. IRAS allows property tax, maintenance, sinking fund contributions, letting fees and the interest portion of the mortgage to be set against rental income, so tax is charged on what is left at the marginal rate you set. Entering any rent moves that property onto the non-owner-occupier property tax rates automatically — those run 12% to 36% against 0% to 32%, which is usually the single largest consequence of letting a home out.
URA actual path
The dashed line replays the real Private Residential Property Price Index, All Residential, from Q2 2006 to
Q2 2026 — twenty years of actual year-on-year moves applied to today's psf instead of a smooth curve.
Over that window the index compounded at 4.72% a year, but it fell about 25% between 2008 and
2009 and rose about 38% the year after. A CAGR hides that entirely. Source: URA via data.gov.sg, dataset
d_97f8a2e995022d311c6c68cfda6d034c, base Q1 2009 = 100.
What this does not model
- Mortgage interest, loan quantum, TDSR, or the cash-versus-CPF split — all of which can dominate the answer.
- Carry-forward of a rental loss. A year whose deductions exceed the rent is simply taxed at nil.
- Repairs, furnishing, or agent fees on re-letting beyond the annual figure entered.
- Renovation, furnishing, or the cost of moving.
- CPF accrued interest owed back on sale.
- Any guarantee that either property grows at the rate you typed. The growth figure is an assumption you control, not a forecast.
Indicative only, not financial advice. Confirm every figure against IRAS and the developer's documents before acting on it.
Prepared by Stefan Teo · CEA Reg No R066970C and Jodi · CEA Reg No R065997B. Indicative projections only, based on the assumptions entered above and not a forecast. Property tax and stamp duty rates are from IRAS; the price index is URA data published via data.gov.sg. This sheet is not financial advice and does not account for mortgage eligibility, CPF accrued interest, rental vacancy or tax on rental income. Confirm every figure against the developer's documents and IRAS before acting on it.