Your first place.
We work out what you can actually afford before you fall for anything — the loan, the cash on completion day, and the monthly. A real number, in front of you, before the first viewing.
You are probably here because:
- You do not own anything yet, and everyone around you has an opinion about what you can afford.
- The bank says one number, HDB says another, and neither of them asked what you already owe each month.
- You have seen a flat you like, and you do not know whether liking it yet is allowed.
If two of those landed, the rest of this page is the order I would do it in.
What nobody tells a first-time buyer.
The hardest part of a first purchase is not the money. It is that you are asked to make a decision worth several hundred thousand dollars with no way to practise first, while five people who bought at a completely different time in the market tell you what they would do.
So most first-timers arrive with a number. It came from a friend, a bank calculator that asked four questions, or a parent who bought in 1997. It is almost never the number a bank would actually approve, and it is never the number that matters on completion day — that one is cash, not price, and it is the one that ends up moving a shortlist.
The other thing nobody mentions: liking a flat early is fine. You are allowed to fall for one. What is not fine is finding out in week six that it was two hundred thousand outside what you could borrow, because by then you have compared everything else to it and nothing measures up. That is the sequence I am trying to save you from, and it is the only reason the numbers come first on this page.
What I want you to end up with is boring: a ceiling you trust, a completion-day figure you have already met, and a shortlist where every flat clears both. Everything after that is taste — which is the part you should be spending your weekends on. If you are still working out where, start with the neighbourhood guides.
How this actually goes.
Five steps. The first two happen before you look at a single listing, and they are the two that change what you end up buying.
We find your ceiling before we find a flat.
A bank caps your total monthly repayments at 55% of your income, and an HDB loan is capped tighter again. Both are worked out at a stress rate of 4%, not the rate you will actually pay. I run yours first, so the number you carry into a viewing is real.
Then we work out what completion day costs.
Not the price — the cash. The option fee, the balance of the down payment, stamp duty, legal fees, and the gap you pay yourself if the flat values below what you offered. This is the number that moves most shortlists, and it is better to meet it now than in week six.
We check the grants properly, once.
Grants turn on income, on whether either of you has owned before, and on how close you are buying to family. They come straight off the number above. I would rather spend twenty minutes getting this right than have you budget around a grant you were never going to get.
We shortlist under the number, not over it.
Every flat I send you clears the two numbers above. And I will talk you out of one when it does not stand up — the lease, the layout, or a price the last three transactions do not support. That conversation costs me a commission and saves you a decade.
The offer, and the dates that follow it.
What to offer and what to hold back, then the Option to Purchase, the valuation, the loan, and the completion date — in the order they have to happen. You will know what is due, and when, before you sign the first document.
From a first purchase last year.
“She ran the numbers before she showed us anything, so we never viewed a flat we could not have bought. When we found one we loved she told us the asking price was about forty thousand ahead of the last three sales in the block, and she was right.”
PlaceholderWritten to a brief, not by a client. Replace it with a real review, or delete the entry in data/home.ts — the section drops off the page rather than breaking the build.
Do step one yourself, now.
Free, no sign-up, and nothing is sent to me. Start with the first one — the other two only matter once you have a ceiling.
Affordability Calculator
Start hereThe largest loan a bank will actually approve for you, stress-tested at 4%, and the cash and CPF you will need on completion day.
Stamp Duty Calculator
Buyer's Stamp Duty applies to you. Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty does not — it is zero on a first residential property for a Singapore citizen. Worth knowing before somebody tells you otherwise.
HDB Resale Outlay Calculator
If it is a resale flat: the price, the cash-over-valuation, the fees, less your grant and your loan. The completion-day figure in full.
If you would rather read first.
I write these as I go. The ones on how I handle a deal are the ones worth your time before a first purchase — including why I will talk you out of a unit.
Send me three numbers.
Your income, what you owe each month, and your CPF Ordinary Account balance. I will come back with your ceiling and what completion day costs — not a brochure, and not a call I have to book first.