There's a property video making the rounds, and the pitch is simple. Sell your HDB flat, upgrade to a condo. Four years later, sell that and upgrade to a bigger one. Keep climbing, and a $700,000 flat becomes a few million.
On a spreadsheet, it's beautiful. Every row, the price goes up. Your money seems to grow with every move.
I want to be fair to it. The move itself is real — I've helped families climb a step or two of exactly this ladder, and upgrading is one of the best wealth moves a Singapore family can make.
But the spreadsheet hides one thing. Every step up has a cost. And when you add those costs across a whole lifetime of moving, they don't just nibble at your gain. They can swallow it whole.
First, Let's Be Fair to the Chart
Start by giving the ladder its best case. Assume your home rises about 3% a year — the long-run average for Singapore homes. No crashes, no flat years, and a clean sale every single time.
Here's the climb. You sell your HDB after the five-year lock-in and buy your first condo at $1,500,000. Four years later it's worth about $1,688,000, and you sell — a gain of $188,000. You trade up to a $2,200,000 condo, hold it a few years to about $2,550,000, and sell — a gain of $350,000. Then you buy your final home at $2,800,000 and stop.
Add the two gains and the chart shows you making $538,000. This is the number that makes people say yes. But it's only half the sheet.
The Half Nobody Shows You
Now put the missing half back in: the cost of the moving itself. Every purchase and every sale carries a bill, and here is every one of them, laid out.
The pattern is simple. Every time you buy, you pay stamp duty — the tax you pay just for buying. Every time you sell, the agent takes about 2%, plus GST. The lawyer bills you on both sides. And every new home gets renovated — here, $80,000 each.
| Transaction | Price | Cost of this step |
|---|---|---|
| Sell HDB | $700,000 | $17,760 |
| Buy Condo 1 | $1,500,000 | $127,100 |
| Sell Condo 1 | $1,688,000 | $39,298 |
| Buy Condo 2 | $2,200,000 | $162,100 |
| Sell Condo 2 | $2,550,000 | $58,090 |
| Buy Condo 3 | $2,800,000 | $192,100 |
| Total cost of moving | $596,448 |
Buying costs more than selling, because stamp duty and renovation both land on the purchase. That's why the three 'buy' rows are the heavy ones.
Group the same numbers a different way, and you can see exactly where the money goes.
| Cost | Across the whole journey |
|---|---|
| Stamp duty — 3 purchases | $233,800 |
| Agent fees — 3 sales (2% + GST) | $107,648 |
| Legal — 6 transactions | $15,000 |
| Renovation — 3 homes at $80,000 | $240,000 |
| Total | $596,448 |
Put the Two Numbers Side by Side
The chart said you made $538,000. The moving cost you $596,448. The cost is bigger than the gain — by about $58,000 — and that's before your final home has earned a single dollar.
So the 'profit' the spreadsheet promised was never really there. It was quietly handed over, one step at a time, to the taxman, the agent and the lawyer. You did all that moving, took on all that loan, and the gain existed mostly on paper on the way through.
“The number on the spreadsheet was never the number in your pocket.”
— Elfi Abdullah
So Should You Never Upgrade? No.
This is not a 'don't upgrade' article. The ladder still works. Moving from an HDB flat to a home that fits your family's future is one of the smartest things you can do.
The enemy isn't owning. The enemy is moving too many times. Every extra move is another full round of stamp duty, agent fee, lawyer and renovation — another slice off the top.
So change the game. Move fewer times, and when you do move, jump bigger. One clean jump — from your flat straight to the home you actually want to stay in — beats three small hops that each pay the toll. The win isn't climbing more often. It's keeping more of what you make.
Every few months a chart goes viral showing a flat becoming a fortune, one upgrade at a time. I love the ambition. But I've signed enough cheques alongside my clients to know the truth — every move quietly costs six figures, and the chart never shows that row. My job isn't to keep you climbing. It's to find the one or two moves that genuinely change your life, and get you there without leaking half your gain on the way. Move with purpose, not on repeat.Elfi Abdullah · Founder, EastCondos.sg
- Does climbing the property ladder actually make money?
- On paper, yes — but the moving itself can eat most of the gain. In a typical three-move climb (an HDB flat up to a $2.8 million condo), the paper gain works out to about $538,000, while stamp duty, agent fees, legal fees and renovation add up to about $597,000. The cost is bigger than the gain, before the final home earns a cent. Upgrading still works — but only if you move fewer times and jump bigger.
- How much does it cost to sell and buy a home in Singapore?
- Every purchase carries stamp duty (the buyer's tax, from 1% up to 6% at higher prices) plus legal fees and renovation. Every sale carries an agent fee of about 2% plus 9% GST, plus legal fees. Across three purchases and three sales in a full upgrade journey, that comes to roughly $597,000 — about $234,000 stamp duty, $108,000 in agent fees, $15,000 legal, and $240,000 renovation.
- What is the 'moving tax'?
- It's the name we give to the total cost of moving home — stamp duty, agent fees, legal fees and renovation — that a growth chart leaves out. It's a tax on moving, not on owning: you pay it every time you buy or sell, so the more often you climb the ladder, the more it stacks up.
- How do I upgrade without losing money to fees?
- Move fewer times and make each move count. One well-chosen jump — from your flat to a home you'll actually keep — pays the fees once instead of three times. Where you can, sell before you buy so you don't trigger the extra second-property tax (ABSD), and hold each home long enough that the timing works in your favour rather than against it.
- Should I upgrade my HDB to a condo?
- Often yes — moving from an HDB flat to a private home that suits your family's future is a genuine wealth move. The mistake is upgrading again and again, chasing a chart. Each extra move hands another six figures to fees. Climb the one or two steps that matter, on numbers you can comfortably hold, and stop.
Thinking about your next move? Before you list or buy, it's worth seeing the real cost — and the fewest, biggest steps that get you where you want to be. That's exactly what a 7-Min Discovery Call is for. We run your actual numbers and map the climb that keeps the most in your pocket.
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