When nearly one in five units at Emerald of Katong quietly disappeared into the hands of property agents before most buyers even knew the project had launched, it raised a question the industry has long preferred to leave unanswered: is Singapore’s new launch system actually fair?
Nearly one in five units vanished into agents’ hands before most buyers even knew the project had launched.
Between September 2024 and October 2025, agents purchased 635 units through priority queues — roughly 4.2% of all new private homes launched in that period. At Emerald of Katong specifically, 173 of 846 units went to agents before the public booking day. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a structural advantage baked into how launches work.
Here’s the part most people miss, though: the problem isn’t really agents buying property. Agents are buyers too, and they’re entitled to invest.
The real issue is that the same agents who secured those units often turned around and marketed the remaining inventory to their own clients — clients who’d no idea how much of the project had already been quietly absorbed. That’s not just awkward. That’s a meaningful information gap that shapes how buyers make decisions.
If you’re a genuine buyer trying to assess demand and unit availability at a launch, you’re fundamentally working with incomplete data. You might see a “fully sold” sign and assume fierce organic demand drove it. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it isn’t.
The Council for Estate Agencies has engaged major agencies on disclosure protocols, and some have introduced mandatory written disclosures when agents buy in projects they also market. That’s a start. But voluntary measures tend to have uneven adoption, and without public reporting requirements, there’s no way to verify compliance across the board. Developers, for their part, benefit from reduced holding risk and lower marketing costs when units are absorbed early by selected buyers. Experts have also suggested that clearer pricing disclosures could help address the information asymmetry that currently disadvantages public buyers during launches. This dynamic becomes even more consequential given that Singapore’s private property market saw over 3,200 units sold in Q1 2025 alone, the highest quarterly volume since 2021, underscoring just how much is at stake when access to launches is unequal.
We’ve seen similar patterns in Canada’s presale condo market, where preferential access drew regulatory scrutiny. Singapore isn’t there yet, but the conversations happening now suggest regulators are watching how agencies self-regulate before deciding whether harder rules are necessary.
What happens next likely depends on whether buyers push back loudly enough to make the status quo uncomfortable — because the industry rarely reforms itself faster than public pressure demands.
