When the government first introduced Sellers Stamp Duty (SSD) in 2010 to curb short-term housing speculation, it was a clear move by the government to ‘eliminate’ the act of residential property ‘flipping’. Now, after several modifications to the SSD framework, including Latest amendments introduced in 2025I have a more nuanced perspective of the overall impact of this policy towards speculative residential investment in Singapore’s housing market. Today, SSDs have “kind of” eliminated house-flipping from the market. While the policy encourages most sellers to wait for a period of four years before selling their property, I think it still hasn’t eliminated the idea of ​​a short-term hold. This approach is based on the belief that residential prices always rise, developers usually start pricing new projects down, and buyers can resell the property at a profit (in a subsale or resale) without much commitment. In general, I think this approach has its merits,…
