Insights ยท 2026-12-01
Why the headline median can mislead you
Headline medians can point the wrong way. The simple median for Queenstown 3-room flats is up 12.6% on a year ago; compared like with like, prices are down 6.2%.
The trap
A median only describes the flats that happened to sell. In Queenstown, 43% of this quarter's 3-room resales had 80+ years of lease left, against 30% a year earlier. Longer leases cost more, so the simple median moved even though comparable flats did not move the same way.
How like-for-like works
We split sales into groups of the same flat type, the same band of remaining lease and the same band of floors. We measure the price change inside each group, then average those changes, weighted by how many flats sold.
Across Singapore
Island-wide the two measures are closer: the simple HDB median is down 1.1% on a year ago, and like-for-like prices are steady (-0.2%), using 6,917 of 6,930 sales.
Queenstown, flat type by flat type
The simple and like-for-like change for each flat type, side by side (full table on the website).
| Flat type | Simple median, 1 year | Like-for-like, 1 year | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-room | up 12.6% | down 6.2% | 95 |
| 4-room | up 6.5% | up 9.9% | 97 |
| 5-room | down 5.9% | too few sales to say | 29 |
What we do about it
Whenever Storey Range says prices moved, it is the like-for-like measure. When we quote a simple median, we say so.