$1.72M at Pinnacle@Duxton: What September's HDB Resale Records Really Signal

Some weeks the HDB resale market produces a headline that travels further than it should. September 2026 produced several.

As EdgeProp reported, a five-room flat at 1C Cantonment Road, part of The Pinnacle@Duxton, sold for $1.72 million ($1,494 psf) this month. It is the highest price recorded for a five-room resale flat at the development and in the Central Area HDB town, and the highest psf for any HDB resale flat in that town. The 1,151 sq ft flat is on the 19th to 21st storeys and has about 84 years of lease left, with the lease starting in 2011.

It beat a record that was just over two weeks old. On Sept 9, a largely unrenovated five-room flat at 1B Cantonment Road, on the 28th to 30th storeys, had sold for $1.701 million ($1,477 psf).

In the same report, a five-room flat at 8A Upper Boon Keng Road, part of Kallang Trivista, changed hands for $1.59 million ($1,273 psf), a new high for five-room flats in Kallang-Whampoa. The 1,248 sq ft flat is on the 28th to 30th storeys, with about 89 years of lease remaining. The previous town record, $1.55 million ($1,231 psf), was set in October 2025 at City View @ Boon Keng.

A few days earlier, EdgeProp reported that a four-room Premium Apartment at 94 Dawson Road, part of SkyParc @ Dawson, sold for $1.388 million ($1,417 psf) on Sept 19, setting new price and psf records for four-room flats in Queenstown. On the same day, a five-room Premium Apartment at Compassvale Ancilla in Sengkang sold for $1.18 million ($979 psf), a new record for five-room flats in that town.

In seventeen years of helping families buy and sell, the people who ask me about headlines like these are usually in one of two positions. They are selling an HDB flat to move up, or selling a larger home to move into something easier. For both, a month like this raises the same question: what does it mean for us? My honest answer is that these records say a lot about a few addresses and much less about the market as a whole. Here is how I read them.

Is $1.72 million the most expensive HDB flat ever sold?

No, and the detail matters.

The all-time HDB resale record in EdgeProp’s data is still $1.728 million, for a five-room flat at 96A Henderson Road in April 2026. What the Pinnacle@Duxton sale does hold is the highest psf among the top five resale transactions, at $1,494. EdgeProp also noted that a five-room flat at Skyoasis @ Dawson was reported in July 2024 as sold for $1.726 million, though that deal does not appear in the current HDB dataset.

So the accurate headline is “Central Area record, on price and psf”, not “most expensive flat in Singapore”. That matters if you are about to price your own flat off a headline. The words in front of “record” tell you who the record belongs to: one project, one town, one flat type.

Why did a lower floor beat a higher one?

The two September sales at The Pinnacle@Duxton were for flats of the same size, 1,151 sq ft. The earlier one sat on the 28th to 30th storeys, about nine storeys higher. The later one, on the 19th to 21st storeys, sold for more. Before either, the development’s record of $1.63 million had been set in May by a flat on the 43rd to 45th storeys.

Dawson tells a similar story. In June, a 980 sq ft four-room flat on the 28th to 30th storeys of the same block at SkyParc @ Dawson changed hands for $1.23 million. The new Queenstown record, a 979 sq ft flat on the 19th to 21st storeys, went for $1.388 million.

I would not read this as “low floors are now worth more”. I would read it as a reminder that floor level is one input, not a formula. Ink Chua, the ERA agent who marketed the $1.701 million flat, told EdgeProp that buyers are placing more weight on location, layout and size, and caring less about existing renovation because they know they can redo the interiors. The flat she sold was well below the previous record-holder’s floor, and a few prospective buyers noted its view was “a small pocket of sea view rather than a full panorama”. It still set a new high.

Floor level is one input, not a formula. The $1.701 million record was set on a lower floor, without a full view.

For a seller, that is encouraging and humbling at once. Encouraging, because you do not need the top floor or a new kitchen to achieve a strong price in the right block. Humbling, because each record was set by the buyer who happened to be looking that month, and it may be matched, beaten or simply not repeated.

Is this a neighbourhood story or a national one?

Mostly a neighbourhood story, with one national number worth knowing.

The national number: islandwide, 11 HDB resale flats have sold for $1.6 million or more so far in 2026, compared with five in the whole of 2025, according to EdgeProp. That is a real shift at the very top of the market.

But look at where those deals sit. Three of this year’s 11 were at The Pinnacle@Duxton. All 10 of the highest-priced HDB resale deals in the Central Area are five-room flats in that one development. The other addresses on the all-time top five are 96A Henderson Road, 92 Dawson Road and 9B Boon Tiong Road. Dawson, in EdgeProp’s words, “has been a regular source of record-setting HDB transactions”, including a flat at 96 Dawson Road that fetched $920,000 in June, a record for three-room flats in Queenstown at the time.

These are a small number of addresses with things in common. The Pinnacle@Duxton is a short walk from Maxwell, Tanjong Pagar and Outram Park MRT stations. The Upper Boon Keng flat is within a five-minute walk of Kallang MRT station. SkyParc @ Dawson has Queenstown and Redhill MRT stations nearby. Around Kallang, EdgeProp also pointed to URA’s Kallang Alive masterplan and a new bus interchange to be integrated with Kallang MRT station under the upcoming Kallang Horizon project. EdgeProp suggested the Pinnacle@Duxton price could be attributed to the development’s iconic status, with its city-fringe location, distinctive design, CBD proximity and relatively long remaining lease all playing a part.

Sengkang is the useful contrast. Its new five-room record is $1.18 million, at $979 psf. That is a genuine milestone for Sengkang, and it sits in a very different price band from the Central Area. A record in one town tells you about that town. It does not set a floor for a flat three towns away.

A record is a fact about one address. It becomes your number only if your flat shares what made that address scarce.

What do these records have in common on lease?

Every one of them is on a lease that still has a long way to run.

The Pinnacle@Duxton flat has about 84 years left. The Upper Boon Keng flat has about 89. The SkyParc @ Dawson flat, in a development whose lease started in 2021, has 94 years and 2 months. The Compassvale Ancilla flat has 88 years.

That matters for how you use these numbers. If you own an older flat in the same town, the record is a signal about the location, but the buyer for your flat will be weighing a shorter lease. Chua told EdgeProp that buyers of million-dollar flats typically prioritise floor level, views, remaining lease and proximity to an MRT station. Remaining lease is on that list for a reason.

For families making a decade-long decision, I would put it this way. You are not only buying today’s price. You are also buying the lease the next buyer will inherit from you. A flat with a long runway and a strong location has two things working for it. A flat with only one of them should be priced like it.

What should upgraders and right-sizers take from this?

Upgraders first. If you are selling a flat in one of these towns to fund your next home, a record nearby is good for sentiment and a poor basis for a budget. Build your plan on recent transactions for your own block, flat type and floor range, and treat anything above that as a bonus rather than a down payment. Even the $1.701 million sale, the first of September’s two Pinnacle@Duxton records, came after a listing that met what Chua called “some strong pushback” on price, with roughly eight offers besides the buyer’s and some negotiations falling through.

Now right-sizers. The $1.701 million flat drew older buyers moving from private homes to public housing, and Chua said she has seen more private property owners seeking large, well-located HDB flats as their forever homes. She expects more such buyers to consider flats like it, given the government’s recent scrapping of the 15-month wait-out period for private homeowners buying a non-subsidised HDB resale flat without an HDB housing loan. If you are in that group, the appeal is clear: generous space, a central address and, as Chua put it, no monthly maintenance fees for condo facilities you do not use often. So is the trade-off. You are competing for a small pool of flats in exactly the blocks where records are being set, and you will pay for that scarcity.

For multi-generational families, I would add one more lens. A large flat near an MRT station in an established estate can work very well across generations, for grandparents who would rather not drive and for children who will one day commute. But choose it for how your household will live in it over the next ten years, not because a neighbour’s sale made the news this month.

The number that actually matters

September’s records are real, and they tell us something true: larger, well-located HDB flats on long leases are in demand, and buyers are paying for location, layout and size ahead of finishes. What they do not tell you is what your flat is worth, or what you should pay for the one you are viewing next weekend.

That answer sits in a narrower set of transactions: your block, your stack, your lease, your month. If you are weighing a sale in one of these estates, or thinking about moving from private property into a larger flat, I am glad to walk through those numbers with you. You can read more about how I work here.