Sold your flat for a tidy price? Before you celebrate, here's the hard truth: the sale price is notwhat lands in your bank account. After everyone takes their cut, your actual cash in hand is often a lot smaller — and one big chunk doesn't even come to you as cash. Let's walk through it. 👇
🏦 First, the bank gets paid
Your outstanding home loan is settled straight from the sale. If you still owe $400,000, that comes off the top before you see a single dollar.
💸 Then the selling costs
- Agent commission — usually around 1%–2% of the sale price, plus 9% GST on the fee.
- Legal / conveyancing fees — a few thousand dollars.
- Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD)— if you sell within the holding period (currently 4 years), this can be a big bite. Hold longer and it's zero. Check yours with the SSD calculator.
🔄 The big surprise: your CPF refund
This is the one that catches people out. If you used your CPF to buy the home, you must refund the amount you used plus the accrued interest — the 2.5% OA interest that money would have earned. On a property held many years, that can be six figures.
The important bit: this refund goes back into yourCPF, not your pocket. It's still your money — just locked in CPF for your next home or retirement. See how big yours is with the CPF accrued interest calculator.
💵 So what's actually cash in hand?
Put simply: sale price − outstanding loan − selling costs − CPF refund = cash in hand. It's common for a seller who "made a profit" to walk away with far less cash than expected, because so much went back into CPF.
📈 Cash in hand vs your true profit
These are two different things. Cash in hand is what reaches your bank now. True profitis what you actually made over the whole journey — sale price minus your original purchase price, the Buyer's Stamp Duty and costs you paid when buying, and the selling costs. Your CPF refund isn't a loss (it's yours), but the accrued interest is a real cost of having used CPF.
🤔 Was buying even worth it?
Once you know your true profit, ask the bigger question: would you have done better simply investing that money instead? The opportunity cost calculator grows the same cash and CPF at savings, Singapore Savings Bonds, T-bill and share rates — so you can compare your property's return against the alternatives.
🧮 Work out your own number
Don't guess — the gaps are large. Put your figures into the property sale proceeds calculator: it shows your cash in hand, how much returns to CPF, and your true profit, all with a clear breakdown of where every dollar goes.