To my recollection, the last time average HDB resale prices recorded a quarterly fall was when Flappy Bird was still on every phone, and people unironically said that Instagram was dead because of Vine.

That's how long ago it was.

This was the years between 2013 and 2018 - zero Cash Over Valuation (COV) was the norm faced by buyers, and some analysts used words like "moribund" to describe the HDB market.

It's taken until 2026 to see a faint echo of that market dynamic. For the first time since 2019, HDB resale prices have declined on a quarterly basis. Now it is a small movement to be sure - just 0.1per cent in Q1 2026 - but what matters is that we've seen five consecutive quarters of slower or no price growth.

One of the biggest causes of this is the incoming wave of flats reaching their Minimum Occupation Period (MOP). Around 13,400 units are expected to enter the resale market this year, roughly double the number in 2025, and there are even larger tranches of resale-eligible flats expected in 2027 and 2028.

The numbers are especially high in some neighbourhoods. I mentioned Punggol North Shore as one example in June of last year, but recently, we saw the impact play out in Tampines. Both Pinery Residences and Rivelle Tampines sold over 90per cent of their units at launch. I'm convinced that one contributing factor was HDB upgrader demand in the area: about 2,100 to 2,200 flats in Tampines alone are reaching their MOP in 2026, making it one of the top contributors of resale flats for the year (alongside Punggol and Queenstown).