The Market Is Up 28%. These CCR Buyers Are Still Losing Money After 13 Years.

The URA index hit 210.8 in the first quarter of 2026 — its highest point ever, roughly 28 to 35% above where it sat during the CCR market peak of 2013 to 2015. By any standard reading of the market, owners who bought at that peak should be close to flat, or turning a corner.

They are not.

Buyers who paid above roughly $1,700 per sqft for CCR condos in the 2009 to 2017 launch cycle are still losing money. Not because the market fell. Because the market went up — just not for them.

The core finding: Ten of twelve qualifying CCR projects with implied entry above $1,700 PSF and proper holding periods show win rates below 50%. Marina Bay Suites holders have averaged 13.6 years of ownership, and only 1 in 10 has made any money. Marina One Residences holders have averaged 7 years, and the win rate is 3.6%. Meanwhile, buyers who paid $2,750 PSF — considerably more — for Riviere in RCR are sitting on a 94.4% win rate after just 4.3 years.

This is not an argument about whether CCR is expensive or RCR is better value in the abstract. It is about what the same PSF number means in different places — and why, for a specific cohort of CCR buyers, patience has not worked.

The Puzzle: A Market at Its Peak, Sellers Still Underwater

Start with the numbers that should not be true simultaneously.

The URA non-landed residential index climbed from roughly 155 to 165 during the 2013 to 2015 CCR peak. It now sits at 210.8. That is a 28 to 35% nominal rise. Anyone who bought at the peak and held to today is reselling into a market that is, by the headline index, substantially higher.

Yet Marina Bay Suites — a D1 Downtown Core leasehold project completed in 2013, bought by many at the lower end of the market's implied entry range — has a 10% win rate across 20 resale transactions. The average holding period is 13.6 years. The average loss is $648,914.

Scotts Square in D9 Orchard: freehold, completed 2011, 14.4-year average hold, 17.7% win rate, average loss of $575,271.

Marina One Residences, D1, completed 2017: 7 years average hold, 3.6% win rate.

OUE Twin Peaks, D9 River Valley, completed 2015: 7.9 years average hold, 7.0% win rate.

These are not edge cases. They are representative of what happened to a specific class of CCR buyer — one who entered above roughly $1,700 implied PSF in the cycle that ran from 2009 to 2017. And for them, the market being at a record high has not been enough.

One important note on method: the entry PSF figures used here are the minimum observed resale PSF per project — a conservative proxy for implied launch price. True launch prices were likely lower, meaning actual losses from launch are probably worse than the figures stated here. The bias runs in the direction of understating the CCR problem, not overstating it.

Test 1: Does a CCR Ceiling Actually Exist?

The data supports it — but it needs to be stated precisely.

Below are the CCR projects with proper holding periods (excluding sub-sale artefacts and Sentosa Cove, explained in a moment):

Ten of twelve qualifying projects in the implied entry range above $1,700 PSF show win rates below 50%. Most are well below 50%. The two exceptions — Sophia Hills and Skysuites@Anson, marked above — are not random outliers. They are both small-unit leasehold projects (667 to 700 sqft) completed in or near the 2013 to 2014 correction trough. The era signal is explicit: buyers who caught the bottom of the cycle did well even inside CCR. Everyone else largely did not.

Three projects in the CCR loss-leader list must not be counted here: Cuscaden Reserve (0.06-year average hold), 19 Nassim (0.0-year average hold), and The Residences at W Singapore Sentosa Cove (0.37-year average hold). These are essentially same-week resales at cost — administrative or speculative flips, not investment outcomes. Similarly, The Coast at Sentosa Cove and The Oceanfront at Sentosa Cove are D4 foreign-ownership-restricted waterfront products. Their 15.8% and 45.5% win rates are a separate story — structural product failure, not PSF ceiling.

Remove all of them, and the ceiling pattern across D1, D2, D7, D9, D10, D11 holds intact.

Test 2: Does Holding Longer Fix It?

This is the intuitive hope. CCR is expensive; the market needs time to catch up; eventually the losses reverse.

The data largely rejects it.

Marina Bay Suites holders have averaged 13.6 years. Win rate: 10%. Average loss: $648,914 on a typical 1,625 sqft unit. To be precise about the unit size: the large absolute loss partly reflects the scale of the asset — the same percentage decline on a bigger flat produces a bigger dollar figure. But the win rate is percentage-based. It is not a unit-size story. Nine out of ten sellers are losing, at any unit size.

Scotts Square: 14.4 years average hold. Win rate: 17.7%. Average loss: $575,271.

Espada (D9 River Valley, freehold, completed 2013): 12.7 years average hold. Win rate: 12.5%.

One Shenton (9.7 years, 45.5%) and Marina Bay Residences (11.6 years, 44.4%) are closer to breakeven — but not through it. After holding for more than a decade, buyers in both projects still face a coin-flip outcome, with the coin weighted against them.

The honest summary: for the 2009 to 2017 CCR cohort, additional years of holding have nudged some projects from severe losses toward near-breakeven. They have not reliably pushed anyone into profit.

The macro index makes this especially hard to argue away. The market is at 210.8 — a record high. The index was at roughly 155 to 165 at the CCR peak when these buyers entered. The index has done its part. The specific CCR product has not.

Test 3: Is the Ceiling Regional, or Just a Timing Problem?

Here is where the era explanation — competing explanation 1 from the brief — must be taken seriously.

Every losing CCR project in the table above completed between 2009 and 2017. That window spans the cycle peak and the subsequent correction. Marina One Residences and V On Shenton completed in 2017, right at the tail end of the peak pricing period. OUE Twin Peaks in 2015. Scotts Square in 2011. It is entirely possible that any region's buyers who entered at cycle peak would show the same pattern — and that CCR is not structurally different, just more concentrated at the peak.

The RCR data is where this gets complicated.

Alex Residences in D3 Bukit Merah completed in 2017 — the same year as Marina One Residences and V On Shenton. Its implied entry PSF is $1,995, higher than both. Its win rate is 95.7%.

Sky Habitat in D20 Bishan completed in 2015, the same year as OUE Twin Peaks. Its implied entry PSF of $1,686 is close to OUE Twin Peaks' $1,913. Its win rate is 88.1%.

The Crest (D3, 2017, $1,675 implied PSF) is the weakest non-Keppel Bay RCR project — at 59.6%, it is the bottom of the RCR range. That is still substantially above most of the CCR projects in the comparable era and PSF band. Worth noting: The Crest's typical unit size is 1,184 sqft, large for an RCR project, which may have dampened demand liquidity. It is not a failure; it is the lower bound of what RCR looks like even in an unfavourable configuration.

Two notes on Keppel Bay: Reflections at Keppel Bay (50.9% win rate) and Corals at Keppel Bay (43.8%) sit inside the RCR universe geographically, but they behave more like CCR lifestyle products — waterfront, premium-priced, unanchored to transit or neighbourhood fundamentals. Excluding them, the RCR floor for proper residential projects is approximately 60%.

The era argument has some force. But if era alone explained the CCR pattern, RCR projects completing in the same 2015 to 2017 window at similar or higher PSF should also be showing sub-50% win rates. They are not.

What the RCR contrast actually shows: Buyers who paid $2,750 PSF for Riviere — the highest implied entry price of any RCR project across qualifying projects — have a 94.4% win rate after just 4.3 years. That is a higher win rate at a higher PSF than almost every qualifying CCR project across qualifying projects, including those where buyers have held for more than a decade. The number $2,750 PSF means something completely different in D3 Singapore River than it means in D1 Downtown Core.

The Three-Region Picture

†Sophia Hills (71.7%) and Skysuites@Anson (71.4%) are named exceptions — correction-trough entries, small units. ‡The Laurels (60%, freehold D9 Newton) has exactly 15 qualifying transactions — treat as directional.

OCR deserves a direct statement: among projects completed in 2013 to 2023, no OCR project across qualifying projects falls below a 71% win rate. The weakest OCR performers are all pre-1990 completions dealing with lease decay (Neptune Court, 1975; Laguna Park, 1978). Modern OCR, at any tested PSF level, has not produced a systematic failure cohort.

Two Sides of the Same Answer

The data supports a CCR PSF ceiling for the 2009 to 2017 launch cohort. Above roughly $1,700 implied entry PSF in CCR, most buyers are still losing money despite a record-high URA index. The contrast with RCR and OCR at comparable or higher PSF levels is real and consistent across more than thirty qualifying projects.

But the era effect — competing explanation 1 — is a genuine live rival, and the article cannot honestly suppress it.

Here is what the data can and cannot separate: buyers who entered CCR above $1,700 PSF in 2011 to 2017 did so at or near a market peak. Buyers who entered RCR at comparable PSF in the same years were entering markets with different demand structures — more liquid, smaller unit sizes, better absorption from owner-occupier and move-up buyer demand. The CCR cohort entered at a price level the market has not confirmed in resale even after 7 to 14 years of holding. Whether that is because CCR at $1,700+ is structurally harder to recover from, or because any region's buyers at that cycle peak would show similar damage, is something the current dataset cannot fully resolve. The RCR data complicates the era-only explanation. It does not eliminate it.

What the data does confirm is narrower but more actionable: for buyers currently holding a CCR unit from the 2011 to 2017 window and hoping the index rise will eventually translate — it has risen 28 to 35% from where they bought, and the win rates across this cohort have not moved into majority-profitable territory. Another five years of index appreciation might be enough. It has not been enough after the first thirteen.

The same data also suggests that the 2019 to 2024 CCR launch cohort is not in the same situation. Those buyers have entered into a different part of the cycle, and most have held for only two to four years. Whether the same ceiling applies to them — whether $3,000 PSF in D1 today carries the same structural risk as $1,700 PSF in D1 in 2013 — is a question the current evidence cannot answer. The pattern is clear for the 2009 to 2017 cohort. Beyond that, it is extrapolation.

For related reading on how region labels can mislead, The Same "CCR" Label Covered a $4.8 Million Gain and a $2.4 Million Loss. The Region Label Predicted Almost Nothing. and Singapore's Most Expensive Planning Area Is Also Its Worst for Condo Resale Profits both test the same question from different angles.