Million-dollar mortgages rise as some buyers put more money upfront

Nearly eight in 10 OCBC customers buying new private launches borrowed at least $1 million in the first half of 2026. Yet only 52% took the maximum loan permitted, down from 67% in 2021.

That combination matters because a bigger mortgage does not necessarily mean a buyer is borrowing a bigger share of the home’s price. In this group, prices grew faster than loans, which means buyers were covering more of the purchase upfront with cash, Central Provident Fund savings or both.

Home prices outran mortgage growth

Among OCBC customers buying new private launches, purchase prices rose 49% between 2021 and the first half of 2026, while the median mortgage grew by 35%. The proportion borrowing at least $1 million climbed from four in 10 buyers to nearly eight in 10.

The resale figures moved in the same direction, though less dramatically. Private resale purchase prices rose 36% while median loans increased 32%. The share taking the maximum permitted loan slipped from 66% to 61%.

For HDB resale purchases, prices and median loans both rose 32%, so that segment did not show the same widening gap between price and loan growth.

Tok Geok Peng, OCBC’s group head of consumer secured lending, attributed the new-launch pattern partly to borrowers—whose median age was reportedly around 38—having accumulated savings or CPF funds that reduced the amount they needed to borrow.

Other banks offered observations broadly consistent with buyers taking larger loans without necessarily pushing their borrowing ratio higher. UOB’s head of group personal financial services, Jacquelyn Tan, said its average private-property loan grew by about 8% a year from 2023 to the first half of 2026, reaching more than $1 million. Chelsea Ling, head of deposits and secured lending at DBS Singapore’s consumer banking group, observed lower year-on-year loan-to-value ratios for its private-home borrowers.

These are individual banks’ observations rather than a public dataset covering every Singapore home buyer. OCBC has not published the underlying borrower figures in a publicly accessible release, so the percentages should be read as a close look at its customers—not as a nationwide buyer trend.

A larger loan can still be a smaller slice

Loan quantum and loan-to-value ratio, or LTV, answer different questions.

The loan quantum is simply the dollar amount borrowed. LTV measures that loan against the lower of the purchase price or the property’s valuation. A buyer can therefore take a larger mortgage than someone did five years ago while financing a smaller proportion of a much more expensive home.

Consider a simplified illustration. A 75% loan on a $2 million home is $1.5 million, leaving $500,000 to be funded outside the mortgage. A 65% loan on a $2.5 million home is larger at $1.625 million—but the buyer must contribute $875,000 upfront. The debt rises by $125,000 while the amount funded with cash or CPF rises by $375,000.

For a borrower with no outstanding housing loan, Singapore’s current LTV limit for a bank loan is generally 75%. Stricter limits can apply when the loan has a long tenure or runs beyond the borrower’s 65th birthday. The total debt servicing ratio, or TDSR, separately limits total monthly debt repayments to 55% of monthly income.

These rules constrain how much a household may borrow. They do not tell us whether using less than the maximum is comfortable for that particular household.

Lower leverage is only half the household picture

Putting more money down has a clear benefit: the buyer owes less than they otherwise would and pays interest on a smaller balance. It also creates more equity in the home from day one.

But a home buyer’s resilience depends on what remains after completing the purchase—not only on the mortgage ratio. Cash may still be needed for stamp duty, legal fees, renovation, furnishing and unexpected repairs. More importantly, it provides a buffer if income drops or expenses suddenly rise.

Two households with the same purchase price and LTV can therefore be in very different positions. One may retain a year’s expenses after completing the purchase; the other may have used almost every available dollar and much of its CPF Ordinary Account balance. Their bank loans look identical, but their room to handle a setback does not.

This is the missing denominator in the lender figures. A falling share of maximum-LTV borrowers tells us that more OCBC customers funded a larger portion outside their mortgages. It does not disclose how that contribution was split between cash and CPF, or what financial reserves remained afterward.

CPF reduces the cash bill, but it is still your money

CPF Ordinary Account savings can reduce the cash needed for a home. That can make a purchase easier to complete without increasing the bank loan, but the money is no longer available to keep earning CPF interest for retirement.

CPF Board recommends retaining $20,000 in the Ordinary Account as a buffer where possible. That reserve can help to continue servicing a housing loan during a period of reduced income.

There is also a consequence when the home is eventually sold. CPF money used for the purchase, together with the interest it would have earned, generally has to be returned to the owner’s CPF account from the sale proceeds.

That refund is not a penalty: it restores the member’s retirement savings. But it can reduce the cash received from the sale and therefore affect how much is readily available for the next home or other expenses.

CPF Board says about 800,000 homeowners use CPF savings for housing instalments each year. Its data also shows that more than nine in 10 properties sold generated enough proceeds to refund all the CPF used.

When a property is sold at market value and the proceeds cannot cover both the outstanding mortgage and required CPF refund, the owner generally does not have to top up the shortfall in cash. The trade-off is that less money returns to CPF, leaving less for retirement or a subsequent purchase.

The useful number is what remains

The OCBC figures reveal an important change within one lender’s customer base: new-launch buyers were taking much larger mortgages, but the home prices they paid rose even faster. Fewer were borrowing at the maximum permitted ratio, and more of the purchase was being carried by their own cash or CPF.

That can leave a buyer less leveraged, which is valuable. It is not, by itself, a complete measure of financial safety.

For an individual household, the more revealing figures sit outside the mortgage approval: cash remaining after completion, CPF retained as a buffer, monthly payments under a higher interest rate, and the amount needed for the next move. A smaller loan share is helpful only when getting there has not emptied the reserves meant to make home ownership sustainable.