Even when borrowing costs subsequently rose as the US Federal Reserve hiked interest rates in quick succession from 2022 to 2023 to try to tame runaway inflation, property prices kept climbing, albeit at a slower pace.
These days, mortgage rates are trending down again, providing a fillip to the market. At the same time, housing supply is rising, easing the fear of missing out for those who didn’t manage to get in on the action in recent years, when the pandemic held back new launches.
While property developers continue to gripe about the high costs of land sales, building materials and construction, many of them are emboldened by the market’s resilience and raring to push out more projects.
For Marcus Chu, CEO of Apac Realty, this is only a hint of the momentum still to come. Apac Realty owns the exclusive master franchise rights for the ERA brand in 17 markets in the Asia Pacific. ERA is the second-largest real estate broker in Singapore, with nearly 9,000 agents.
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“We are in the initial years of a bull run,” Chu tells The Edge Singapore. “I cannot see any big shock to the property market at the moment, barring any new cooling measures or another catastrophic event like Covid.”
It’s a bold claim, given the backdrop of global economic headwinds and geopolitical uncertainty. But for Chu, the fundamentals of Singapore’s property market are aligning in a way he has rarely seen before.
Compared to multi-year highs of more than 4% in 2023, mortgage rates these days are substantially lower, with some even below 2%. Meanwhile, the government is releasing more land for the development of private homes and ramping up its Build-To-Order (BTO) programme. About 55,000 BTO flats are slated for launch between this year and 2027, a 10% increase from an earlier target of 50,000 units.
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For home buyers, this combination of lower financing costs and steady supply offers an unusual window of opportunity. Yet demand remains strong even at steep prices. Many new condo launches, for example, still attract eager crowds even when priced at well over $2,000 psf, a level considered eye-watering not many years ago.
Chu points to Singapore’s unique system of public housing as a foundation for stability. The country’s home ownership rate of some 90% is one of the highest in the world. “No government can afford to affect the wealth of 90% of its people, and that support underpins our long-term sustainability.”
The steady pipeline of BTO flats is a key driver of the entire property market, notes Chu, who has been in real estate sales for nearly three decades. Over time, these flats become springboards for upgrading to private property. A BTO project typically requires three years of construction. Buyers of such flats need to live there for at least five years before they can sell their property.
“The BTO system paves the foundation for wealth creation,” says Chu. “Someone who books a flat at 25 will be ready to upgrade by 33. That’s when they bring the profits from the sale of their HDB flats to the private housing market.”
‘Boom year’
Potential upgraders to private property will have plenty to look forward to. The government’s land sales programme this year is expected to yield almost 10,000 new private homes, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority. That’s about 50% more than the average annual supply between 2021 and 2023.
“If the market is launching 10,000 units a year, it’s considered a boom year,” says Chu. Between this year and 2027, more than 25,000 new private homes are expected to be launched under the government land sales programme. That works out to over 8,000 units annually if spread out evenly over three years.
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For Chu, the sale of more than 2,500 units almost overnight following the launch of six new private residential projects in November last year was a key turning point. The momentum hasn’t let up since then. In August this year, another six private residential projects were launched, again attracting strong turnouts.
“Six project launches in a month make us very busy. Project launches mean profits for our company,” he says. Apac Realty’s revenue from new home sales more than doubled to $131.2 million in 1H2025 from $57.9 million a year earlier.
Among the demand drivers are newly minted citizens and permanent residents, affluent families transferring wealth to their children, and a large pool of HDB upgraders whose flats have reached their minimum occupation period, says Chu. Together, they underpin both the mass market and the luxury segments.
If Singapore’s property market is set for a multi-year boom, agencies like ERA are direct beneficiaries. They have as much to gain as developers, construction companies and suppliers of building materials — if not more. Unlike these three groups, property agencies are asset-light, giving them agility to generate steady cash flow without the drag of heavy capital commitments.
No issue being second
One in every four property agents in Singapore is from ERA. The agency also accounts for about a quarter of all residential property transactions here. With such clout, ERA is a go-to whenever a developer wants to launch a project. Still, it trails behind PropNex, which has more than 13,600 agents.
Chu is unfazed by the comparison. “Is being number two in class a bad thing? Look at the Singapore banks. DBS is the largest, but that doesn’t mean people are not banking with UOB or OCBC.”
What matters more for him than market leadership is making sure his agents are well supported and looked after so that they continue with ERA for the long haul. This extends beyond sales support to include staff perks such as health screenings, recruitment grants for new joiners, and ongoing investment in technology to ensure agents have access to all the information they need while on the ground.
Even so, Chu is mindful that Singapore cannot be Apac Realty’s only growth engine. The company operates in 13 Asian markets, but contributions from outside Singapore remain negligible. This could change if plans to scale up in Vietnam and Indonesia, where it sees huge opportunities, take shape and bear fruit.
Growth beyond Singapore
In Indonesia, ERA has pivoted from a franchise model to acquiring majority stakes in leading local brokerages in Jakarta. “Instead of building from scratch, we partner with top brokers and scale their operations,” Chu says.
ERA now has controlling stakes in several top agencies across Jakarta, covering north, west and east of the sprawling capital. The plan is also to expand into other parts of the archipelago, such as Bali and Bandung.
Vietnam, meanwhile, is what Chu calls a Singapore-like opportunity. The Vietnamese government has begun regulating agents through licensing, a move he likens to Singapore’s creation of the Council for Estate Agencies in 2010 to raise the professionalism of property agents.
“The government is moving towards regulation and even studying how to introduce a public housing model. That will make the market more transparent and stable,” he says.
Property transactions in Vietnam predominantly involve new homes. The country has virtually no secondary housing market. In the resale segment, most agents close deals directly with buyers and sellers without formally reporting the transactions. While commissions typically go to the real estate agency, many agents bypass this to avoid paying agency fees.
That practice has drawn attention from regulators. With new rules requiring agents and agencies to be licensed, more transactions will soon have to be recorded through official channels. Once that happens, it could reveal a property sector much larger than official figures suggest. “This market is going to be big. That’s where the opportunity is,” Chu says.
Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh, ERA Vietnam now has more than 4,000 agents. After years of investment and losses, the business is expected to turn profitable this year, helped by a boom in new home launches, says Chu.
Doing right by shareholders
Shares of Apac Realty reached a 52-week high of 80 cents in September, riding broad investor optimism in the Singapore equities market, which is enjoying a long-overdue revival thanks to the central bank’s efforts to rejuvenate the local bourse. The company’s one-for-five bonus issue last month to commemorate its eighth year of listing on the Singapore Exchange also helped its share price.
The stock has since retreated more than 10% but has doubled in value since the start of the year. While it’s holding around its IPO price of 66 cents, shareholders who have been with the company since its listing are still better off after factoring in dividends paid out over the years.
Apac Realty pays out 50%-80% of its annual earnings to shareholders. The payout for this year is expected to be at the high end of this range. Its largest shareholder is Morgan Stanley, which owns nearly two-thirds of the company.
Despite his bullish outlook, Chu is mindful of the challenges in this trade. Chief among them is the rise of artificial intelligence. Could property agents go the way of stockbrokers, displaced by DIY platforms?
Chu thinks not. “Property is not as liquid as shares. You can’t buy today and sell tomorrow,” he says. “Technology can enhance the process, but buyers still want the reassurance of an agent. The user experience is what matters, and that’s where we make the difference.”
Another concern is the large number of inactive agents in the industry. About a third of all licensed property agents in Singapore are not active in the business. “If you only do one deal a year, you risk screwing it up, and that can harm a family that’s investing $2.5 million in a property,” he says.
“I’ve even suggested to the authorities that we consider making everyone full-time. If you hold a licence, you have the responsibility to make sure that the customer is well served.”
Attrition, however, is not always bad. Chu ended ERA’s policy of paying renewal fees for inactive agents. This reduced the agency’s salesforce from 9,200 to 8,600 earlier this year. “It filtered out those who were not committed.” By mid-year, agent numbers rebounded to nearly 9,000.
For all the talk of headwinds, from higher costs and global volatility to the march of artificial intelligence, Chu remains upbeat. Falling mortgage rates, a steady release of new projects and an enduring belief in real estate as a store of wealth are keeping the pulse of the property market strong.
For Apac Realty, that faith in brick and mortar translates into real momentum. The company is not just riding the domestic upcycle but planting seeds across emerging markets like Vietnam and Indonesia. Chu sees in them echoes of Singapore’s own journey, and a chance to export the ERA playbook across a region still hungry for homes and trust.
If his reading of the property cycle proves right, this may not simply be another boom. It could mark the start of a broader revival, one that reaffirms real estate’s place at the heart of Singapore’s economy, and cements Apac Realty’s role as one of its most enduring believers.
