The 15-Month Policy Is Gone. Here Are 25 Ways to Talk About It.

The core briefing: what actually changed on 28 July 2026

What the 15-month policy was

Introduced on 30 September 2022, the wait-out required private residential property owners and recent ex-owners to wait 15 months after disposal before buying a non-subsidised HDB resale flat. Buyers aged 55 and above were exempt, but only when right-sizing to a 4-room or smaller flat. It was always described as a temporary measure.

It worked on its own terms. Private property owners made up about 34% of million-dollar HDB flat buyers between January and September 2022. By the January-November 2024 window that share had fallen to about 12%. HDB resale price growth cooled from 10.4% in 2022 to 2.9% in 2025, then turned negative for two straight quarters.

What changed

Why the timing raised eyebrows

HDB published Q2 2026 resale data on 24 July 2026: down 0.3%, after down 0.1% in Q1 — the first back-to-back declines in nearly seven years. The policy was removed four days later. One reading is that the government is supporting prices. The other is that the measure had done its job, supply is improving, and the minister had already said publicly in June 2025 that he leaned toward scrapping it. Both readings fit the facts, and angle 03 gives you the evidence for each.

What the data says about the price impact

• Roughly 1,800 appeals a year to waive the wait-out, about one in four approved — the affected group is a stream, not a flood.
• About 48,000 flats reach MOP across 2026-2028 (~13,500 / 15,000 / 19,500), plus ~19,600 BTO flats planned for 2026.
• The market is already split: mature estates +0.6% YoY, non-mature -0.5%; 5-room +0.8%, 3-room -1.1%.
• Q2 2026 set a record 491 million-dollar flats in the same quarter the index fell — two markets averaged into one number.
• Large flats took the brunt of the rule: 5-room resale volume fell from 6,951 (2022) to 5,966 (2025); Executive/multi-gen from 1,946 to 1,539.

The honest read most of these angles converge on: firmer prices for large flats in mature estates near MRT, very little movement elsewhere, playing out over quarters rather than weeks.

Where the second-order effects land

The wait-out was quietly manufacturing rental demand — sellers had to lease somewhere for 15 months, and analysts named it as one driver of the 29.7% private rent surge in 2022. That stream just stopped. Meanwhile every downgrader who acts must dispose of their private property within six months, which adds deadline-driven sellers to the private resale market. Angle 04 argues the biggest effect isn't on HDB at all: it's that owning private property just got less risky, because the exit door is now open.