If you rent your home in Singapore, the figures the Urban Redevelopment Authority released on 24 July 2026 are worth a few minutes of your attention. They are the closest thing renters get to an official scoreboard, and the second-quarter numbers tell a more interesting story than the headline suggests. Rents are rising again, but not everywhere, and not by much. Underneath the single national figure is a market splitting into two speeds, with more empty homes than there were a few months ago and a large wave of new supply on the way. For anyone signing a new lease or bracing for a renewal, that combination changes how much room you actually have to push back.
What the Q2 2026 numbers actually say
Across all private homes, rents rose 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2026, up from a 0.3 percent increase in the first quarter. That is the second quarter in a row of gentle gains, but the pace is still mild by the standards of the past few years, and it sits alongside private home prices that rose just 0.5 percent over the same period. Put plainly, the rental market is warm rather than hot.
The bigger movement came from landed homes, where rents jumped 2.7 percent, but those make up a small and unusual slice of the market that most tenants never touch. For the condos and apartments where the vast majority of renters live, the non-landed segment, rents edged up only 0.4 percent, exactly the same modest rate as the previous quarter. So if you feel like your rent conversations have calmed down compared to a year or two ago, the data backs you up. As a rough reference point, condo rents in 2026 have broadly ranged from around S$3,100 to S$5,700 a month depending on size and location, with a typical city-fringe two-bedder sitting near S$3,600 and a three-bedroom closer to S$5,200.
A two-speed market: central up, suburbs softening
The single most useful thing in this release is what happens when you break the non-landed number down by region, because the averages hide a genuine divide. In the Core Central Region, the prime central districts around Orchard, the CBD and the prime residential belt, rents climbed 1.2 percent, more than double the previous quarter's pace. Move out to the city fringe, the Rest of Central Region covering areas like Queenstown, Toa Payoh and Geylang, and rents were essentially flat. Go further out to the suburbs, the Outside Central Region covering places like Tampines, Punggol, Jurong and Woodlands, and rents actually fell by 0.3 percent.
That is a meaningful split for a renter deciding where to live or whether to move. Demand is concentrating in the centre, where prices are being pushed up, while the heartland and suburbs, where most Singapore renters actually are, have quietly turned in the tenant's favour. If you are renting in the OCR and your landlord opens with a rent increase, the data gives you something concrete to point to: prices in your part of the island went down last quarter, not up.
More empty homes means more room to negotiate
The other number renters should notice is vacancy. The share of completed private homes sitting empty rose to 6.4 percent at the end of the second quarter, up from 6.2 percent three months earlier. That may sound like a small shift, but the direction matters: more empty units means landlords compete a little harder to fill them, and a tenant who is willing to walk has more leverage than they did at the start of the year.
Here too the picture is uneven. Vacancy is highest in the prime central region at 8.3 percent, sits at 6.1 percent on the city fringe, and is tightest in the suburbs at 5.6 percent. In other words, even though central rents are rising, there are also more empty central units chasing tenants, which gives well-prepared renters in those areas real bargaining power despite the upward headline. The suburbs stay the most competitive simply because that is where the most people want to live for the money.
Why the next few years look friendlier for renters
If the current quarter is a mild one for tenants, the medium-term outlook is arguably better still, and it comes down to supply. URA expects around 60,600 private homes to be completed in the coming years, including roughly 25,900 by 2028. On top of that, the Government is keeping the taps open through its land sales programme, with 4,745 units on the confirmed list for the second half of 2026 alone, bringing the full-year figure to 9,320 units, more than 50 percent above the average of the past decade.
For renters, a steady stream of newly completed homes is simply good news. More homes reaching the market means more choice, more competition among landlords, and less pressure for rents to spike the way they did during the tight, low-completion years after the pandemic. None of this guarantees rents will fall, but it does suggest the balance of power keeps drifting, slowly, toward the tenant rather than away.
What this means if your lease is up for renewal
Translate all of that into a practical position. If you are renewing in the suburbs or on the city fringe, you are negotiating from a reasonable footing: rents in your segment are flat or falling and there are more empty units around than there were, so a large increase is hard for a landlord to justify with a straight face. Come armed with the quarterly figures and a couple of comparable listings and you have a fair case to hold your rent steady or trim it.
If you are renting in a prime central area, expect more upward pressure, but do not assume you are powerless. Higher vacancy in that region means your landlord also faces the risk of an empty unit and weeks without rent, which is expensive for them. Renewing an existing, reliable tenant is almost always cheaper than finding a new one, and that is a point worth making calmly when the renewal conversation starts. Whichever segment you are in, the timing this year favours renters who do their homework over those who simply accept the first number they are offered.
Making your rent work harder while the market settles
A softer market is a good moment to think not just about how much rent you pay, but how you pay it. Rent is the largest recurring expense most people have, and for years it did nothing but leave the account each month. That is the gap Rently is built to close: you can pay your rent by credit card or eGIRO and earn miles on it through the Earn Rewards on Rent service, with Rently settling the amount directly with your landlord so your tenancy terms stay exactly the same. Every plan carries a transparent service fee shown upfront, so the sensible move is to weigh that fee against the rewards you would earn before deciding whether it makes sense for your rent and your card.
The same flexibility helps at the other end of a tenancy, the move-in. Singapore's deposit norms of roughly one month's rent for an unfurnished home and two for a furnished one still make relocating expensive, even in a calmer market. Rently's option to turn a deposit into smaller monthly payments through its service to lower move-in costs can take some of the sting out of moving to a better-value unit, which is exactly the kind of move a two-speed market rewards. The point is not to spend more, but to make the money you are already committing to rent do a little more work for you.
The bigger picture for renting in Singapore
Step back from the decimal points and the story of renting in Singapore right now is one of returning balance. After a stretch of steep increases, rents are growing slowly, the gains are concentrated in the prime centre rather than the heartland where most renters live, vacancy is edging up, and a substantial supply of new homes is on its way. For tenants, that adds up to more choice and more negotiating room than they have had in a while. The renters who benefit most will be the ones who treat the quarterly data as a tool rather than background noise, know their own segment, time their renewal or move sensibly, and make sure their biggest monthly payment is working as hard as it can. The market has shifted a little in your direction this year, and it pays to use it.
