Landed home sales cooled in the first quarter of 2026, with total transactions slipping to 418 deals — a roughly 13% drop from the unusually active fourth quarter of 2025 — yet the numbers tell a more complicated story than a simple market pullback. Beneath the volume dip, something more telling was happening: buyers were spending more, not less.
The average landed deal size climbed to $6.5 million in 1Q2026, up nearly 11% from $5.86 million the previous quarter. That’s not the behaviour of a nervous market. What drove it? Detached homes.
That segment quietly outperformed every other landed subtype, with transaction volume actually rising from 50 deals in 4Q2025 to 57 deals — and average psf crossing $2,000 for the first time, hitting $2,069. A freehold detached on Dunearn Road changed hands for $55 million in March 2026, underlining where serious money was moving.
Here’s the contrarian read: the overall volume decline isn’t a warning sign — it’s a recalibration. The 4Q2025 spike was the outlier, not the baseline. When you strip that distortion away, 1Q2026 landed activity is only about 3% softer year-on-year. That’s a stable market absorbing elevated prices, not one in retreat.
If you’re a buyer or investor trying to make sense of this, here’s what matters practically. Freehold and 999-year landed properties are pulling further ahead of 99-year leasehold, with the psf gap now at roughly 43%. If you’re considering entry-level landed, that spread has real implications for long-term value retention. The total sales value for landed housing reached $2.8 billion in 1Q2026, even as transaction volumes eased.
Terraced homes still dominate by volume at 228 deals, but the pricing edge is increasingly with detached freehold stock. The semi-detached segment saw both volume and psf ease slightly, and terraced pricing was broadly flat — which tells me the market is being selective rather than broadly bullish. Buyers in this community know what they want, and they’re willing to wait for it. Landed prices overall fell 1.8% quarter-on-quarter in 1Q2026, reversing the strong 3.4% gain seen in the prior quarter, even as detached demand pointed in the opposite direction. This selectivity echoes behaviour seen in the Good Class Bungalow market, where ultra-high-net-worth individuals and business owners sustained demand despite overall volumes remaining well below the 2021–2022 highs.
Looking ahead, if detached demand holds, we could see the $2,100 psf level tested across the broader landed segment before year-end.
