What if the HDB valuation comes in below your price?
You agree the price before requesting the official valuation, so the 21-day OTP window can turn a price gap into a cash decision.
Suppose the seller asks S$620,000.
Cash over valuation is payable in cash on top of the downpayment.
Run it for the flat you're eyeing
This refreshes the valuation range only. The evidence table below remains the worked example's evidence.
Cash over valuation is payable in cash on top of the downpayment.
What similar units actually transacted at — the worked example's evidence
These are historical transactions, not live listings — drawn from the last 12 months (64 matches; the 12 most recent shown, nearest the median first on ties). Each row states one or more differences from the example flat.
| Unit | Storey | Size | Lease left | Month | Price | PSF | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 119 BEDOK NTH RD | 07 TO 09 | 990 sqft | 51 years | 2026-06 | S$515,000 | S$520 | same street, 2 storeys lower, similar size, sold 1 month ago |
| 181 BEDOK NTH RD | 01 TO 03 | 990 sqft | 79 years | 2026-06 | S$720,000 | S$727 | same street, 8 storeys lower, similar size, 27 years more lease left, sold 1 month ago |
| 428 BEDOK NTH RD | 07 TO 09 | 990 sqft | 52 years | 2026-05 | S$565,000 | S$571 | same street, 2 storeys lower, similar size, sold 2 months ago |
| 107 BEDOK NTH RD | 10 TO 12 | 980 sqft | 50 years | 2026-05 | S$550,000 | S$561 | same street, 1 storey higher, similar size, sold 2 months ago |
| 428 BEDOK NTH RD | 01 TO 03 | 990 sqft | 52 years | 2026-05 | S$510,000 | S$515 | same street, 8 storeys lower, similar size, sold 2 months ago |
| 79 BEDOK NTH RD | 07 TO 09 | 980 sqft | 51 years | 2026-05 | S$472,000 | S$482 | same street, 2 storeys lower, similar size, sold 2 months ago |
| 182 BEDOK NTH RD | 01 TO 03 | 990 sqft | 79 years | 2026-05 | S$720,000 | S$727 | same street, 8 storeys lower, similar size, 27 years more lease left, sold 2 months ago |
| 185 BEDOK NTH RD | 10 TO 12 | 990 sqft | 79 years | 2026-05 | S$780,000 | S$788 | same street, 1 storey higher, similar size, 27 years more lease left, sold 2 months ago |
| 430A BEDOK NTH RD | 04 TO 06 | 1,012 sqft | 94 years | 2026-05 | S$900,000 | S$889 | same street, 5 storeys lower, 2% larger, 42 years more lease left, sold 2 months ago |
| 708 BEDOK NTH RD | 04 TO 06 | 980 sqft | 54 years | 2026-04 | S$568,000 | S$580 | same street, 5 storeys lower, similar size, sold 3 months ago |
| 119 BEDOK NTH RD | 01 TO 03 | 990 sqft | 51 years | 2026-04 | S$505,000 | S$510 | same street, 8 storeys lower, similar size, sold 3 months ago |
| 82 BEDOK NTH RD | 04 TO 06 | 990 sqft | 51 years | 2026-04 | S$500,000 | S$505 | same street, 5 storeys lower, similar size, sold 3 months ago |
Why the gap appears after you agree the price
For an HDB resale, the buyer and seller agree a price and the seller grants the Option to Purchase; the buyer then submits the Request for Value to HDB, and the official valuation arrives inside the 21-day option period — before the buyer decides whether to exercise. That sequence matters: the price is agreed while no authoritative valuation exists yet, and the valuation lands later as an input to financing and CPF use, while the option is still open. If it lands below the agreed price, the difference is cash over valuation, usually shortened to COV.
The awkward part is that COV is not a field you can look up in the public resale dataset. HDB stopped publishing COV figures in 2014. A recorded transaction price therefore bundles together the assessed value and any cash premium that buyer accepted. Looking at a list of prices alone cannot tell you how much of each deal was COV.
What makes an asking price defensible?
A defensible price has named comparables and visible adjustments. Start with transactions for the same town and flat type, then look at what is genuinely similar: floor area, street or block, storey band, lease and recency. A higher-floor sale or a larger unit is evidence, but it is not an identical unit. The difference column above makes that reasoning inspectable instead of hiding it inside one headline figure.
The range is more useful than pretending there is one certain number. The cautious, midpoint and upper scenarios show what cash you would cover if the official valuation landed at each point. This is subtraction only: agreed price minus the scenario valuation, floored at zero. It does not estimate your loan, grant, downpayment or eligibility.
Use a stopping rule before the valuation arrives: decide the maximum cash gap you are willing and able to cover, and be prepared to stop if the agreed price requires more than that boundary. That turns an anxious unknown into a decision you made in advance.
Method & provenance
The worked figures use URA/HDB historical transactions in the Nestbase corpus. The range comes from the quantile valuation model through the same engine used by /score; the named rows are the baked worked example's matched HDB resale transactions.
This is a research estimate, not a formal valuation. It uses historical transactions, not live listings, and should be checked against the official valuation and your own financial position.
Generated by scripts/comps_pull.py from the live corpus on 2026-07-30. Matched HDB resale transactions by town, flat type, time window and any supplied street, block or size filters.