How property valuation works in Singapore
A valuation is a professional opinion of value, prepared by a licensed valuer, as at a stated date. It is built from evidence — mostly the same lodged transaction record this site is built from. Here is how a valuer actually gets to that number, and how PriceVero's own 0–100 rating is put together instead.
PriceVero is not a licensed valuation. This page explains how professional valuation works in Singapore, and how our own rating — which checks a price against the lodged record rather than pricing the property itself — is built. It is not an appraisal of any specific property.
Want to test a price instead of reading about the process? Name a project or HDB block, pick a lodged size, add a price, and get the same 0–100 rating a pasted listing gets.
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What a property valuation actually is
In Singapore, valuing property for a fee is a licensed activity. A valuation is not an ad-hoc guess or a portal's estimate — it is a formal, dated opinion of value prepared and signed by a licensed valuer, and it carries weight precisely because of who signed it and what evidence stands behind the signature. That is why a bank, CPF, or a court will not accept anything else in its place.
A valuer is engaged for a specific purpose, inspects the property (or relies on a prior inspection for a desktop update), gathers evidence, and reasons from that evidence to a single figure as at a stated date. The methods below are how that reasoning is done.
The three valuation methods
Most valuations use one of three approaches, chosen for the property and the purpose. All three are standard, publicly documented valuation practice — nothing here is specific to PriceVero.
The most common method for ordinary residential and HDB property. Recent sales of similar units are gathered and adjusted for differences — size, floor, condition, lease — to arrive at a figure for the subject property. This is the approach closest to what a lodged-transaction record like URA's or HDB's directly supports.
Used for property bought to produce income — most industrial and commercial property, and some residential bought for rental yield. Value is derived from the rent the property can command and the return an investor would require for holding it.
Used when there is little or no comparable sale to lean on — a unique building, a redevelopment site, or new industrial stock. Value is built up from the land plus the depreciated cost of reconstructing what stands on it.
A single valuation report can use more than one method and reconcile them, but for standard condominium, HDB resale and most private-residential work, the comparison approach does most of the work — which is also why the lodged transaction record matters so much to anyone trying to understand a price, valuer or not.
What the process looks like
- Engagement. A bank, an owner, a lawyer or an agency instructs a valuer for a stated purpose — a mortgage, a refinance, CPF usage, probate, a dispute.
- Inspection. The valuer inspects the property, or relies on a recent prior inspection for a quick desktop update, noting condition, layout and anything that would move the figure away from a typical unit of that size.
- Comparable evidence. The valuer pulls recent transactions of similar property — the same lodged caveats and resale records this site reads — and adjusts them for size, floor, lease and condition.
- Reasoning to a figure. The adjusted comparables (or the income or cost workings, where those apply) are reconciled into a single opinion of value as at a stated date.
- The report. Signed, dated, and addressed to whoever instructed it — a bank's panel valuation is not addressed to the borrower, for instance, even though the borrower usually pays for it.
Two things follow from this that are easy to miss. First, a valuation is a snapshot — it is only as current as the transactions it was built from and the date it was signed. Second, the comparable evidence step is the same record anyone can read, which is the whole reason a price check against that record is worth doing before you ever need a formal valuation.
When you actually need a licensed valuation
| What you are doing | What you need |
|---|---|
| Getting a mortgage, or refinancing | A licensed valuation — the lender's own panel valuer |
| CPF usage, stamp duty, probate, matrimonial matters | A licensed valuation, full stop |
| A formal dispute or an en bloc exercise | A licensed valuation — a figure that has to stand up to a third party needs a signature behind it |
| Deciding what to offer, or what to ask | The lodged record — what comparable units actually transacted at |
| Sanity-checking a price you were quoted | The record first. It is free, and it is the same evidence a valuer starts from |
| Comparing a shortlist of units | The record, side by side — compare up to three |
How PriceVero's rating works
PriceVero does not value property. It takes a price — the one on a listing, or one you name yourself — and checks it against the same kind of lodged record a valuer reads, then reports a 0–100 rating with an A–E band. Here is what actually happens, at the level anyone is entitled to know before trusting a number:
The evidence a rating reads
- The lodged transaction record for that project or block — the last comparable sale at that size, and recent sales activity over the last two years.
- What the surrounding market has been transacting at, for that kind of unit.
- The building or block's own record — remaining lease, routed walk to the nearest MRT or LRT, primary schools within a kilometre, hawker centres, parks and other observed, dated facts.
- The price itself — from the listing, or typed in directly on a price check.
Two components, named openly
The rating is built from two parts we do not hide: this unit's price, which carries most of the weight — how the specific asking price reads against the lodged record for units like it — and project quality, which carries the rest — a slower-moving read of the building or block itself. We publish what the two components are and roughly how much each matters, and stop there: the exact split and the internal weighting behind each component stay private, so a rating can't be reduced to a formula from the numbers we publish.
How the bands work
A rating lands in one of five bands, each labelled in plain English rather than left as a bare number: A — strong on the evidence, B — above average, C — middling or market-priced, D — weaker, E — poor on the evidence. A band is a read of where the evidence lands, not a percentile and not a guess.
What gets no rating at all
Where the evidence is thin — a project with too few lodged sales, a brand-new launch with no resale history yet — the rating says so and gives no verdict rather than a confident-looking number built on almost nothing. A blank is more honest than a guess, and it is the reason to trust the ratings that are given.
How current it is
Ratings are re-scored daily against new lodgements — new URA caveats, new HDB resale transactions — so a project's evidence base moves as the record grows, not on a fixed schedule.
Valuation and a PriceVero rating, side by side
| Licensed valuation | PriceVero rating | |
|---|---|---|
| Who produces it | A licensed valuer | Evidence read against a named price — no valuer, no opinion of value |
| What it outputs | A single figure, signed and dated | A 0–100 rating and an A–E band for the price you named |
| Legal standing | Accepted by banks, CPF, courts | None — not for a loan, CPF or a dispute |
| Cost and time | A fee, and typically days | Free to start, in about a minute |
| What it needs from you | An instruction and, usually, an inspection | A project or block, a lodged size, and a price |
Limits, stated up front
- New launches get no rating. A rating needs resale history, and a project selling off plan has none.
- Landed property is out of scope. We cover condominiums, apartments and executive condominiums, HDB resale, and industrial.
- Thin evidence gets no rating rather than a guess.
- Nothing here is a valuation, and no part of it should be presented to a bank, to CPF or in a dispute as one.
Questions
How does property valuation work in Singapore?
A licensed valuer is instructed for a specific purpose, inspects the property (or updates a prior inspection), gathers comparable evidence — mostly lodged transactions of similar property — and reasons from that evidence to a single signed, dated figure. Most residential and HDB valuations lean mainly on the comparison approach.
What methods do valuers use?
Three standard approaches: comparison (recent comparable sales, adjusted for differences — the most common for residential and HDB), income (for property bought to produce rent, mainly industrial, commercial and some rental-yield residential), and cost (land plus depreciated construction cost, used when there is little comparable sale to lean on).
How is a PriceVero rating different from a valuation?
A valuation is a licensed opinion of value, produced by a valuer, for a fee. A PriceVero rating checks a price you name against the lodged transaction record and reports a 0–100 rating with an A–E band — it does not produce an opinion of value and has no standing with a bank, CPF or a court.
What does PriceVero's rating actually look at?
The lodged transaction record for the project or block (the last comparable sale at that size, and the last two years of activity), what the surrounding market has been transacting at, and the building or block's own record — lease, MRT distance, schools, hawker centres and parks — measured against the price itself.
Why doesn't PriceVero publish the exact weights or the formula?
So the rating can't be reverse-engineered from the numbers we publish. We name the two components a rating is built from and roughly how much each matters; the internal weighting and calibration behind them stay private, the same way a valuer's own professional judgement isn't published as a formula either.
How often is a rating updated?
Ratings are re-scored daily against new lodgements — new URA caveats and new HDB resale transactions — so the evidence base grows continuously rather than on a fixed schedule.
Can I use a PriceVero rating for a bank loan or for CPF?
No. Lenders instruct a valuer from their own panel and will not accept anything else, and CPF-related matters need a licensed valuation too. A rating is useful earlier — to decide what to offer or what to ask, before a valuation is even in the picture.
Where to look next
PriceVero is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any property portal or any licensed valuer. Ratings derive from URA-lodged caveats and rental contracts, HDB resale transactions published under the Singapore Open Data Licence, PriceVero's own industrial research, MOE school data, LTA rail data and OneMap routing. Nothing on this page is a valuation or an offer.