How much does it cost to rebuild a landed house in Singapore?

Imagine two neighbours. Both own similar inter-terrace houses. Both decide to rebuild.

The first homeowner simply wants a comfortable home that will last the next twenty or thirty years. Nothing extravagant. Just practical finishes and good workmanship.

The specifications include:

• Standard aluminium windows and doors
• Steel staircase railings
• Quartz kitchen countertops
• Vinyl flooring to the bedrooms
• Homogeneous tiles to the common areas
• Practical built-in carpentry
• No lift
• No basement

The second homeowner owns a similar-sized property, but the vision is completely different. The wish list includes:

• Basement
• Home lift
• Large 4m aluminium windows
• Full-height feature glass
• Glass staircase railings
• Extensive veneer carpentry
• Large-format sintered stone flooring
• Designer lighting
• Smart home system
• Premium façade treatment

One question I hear quite often is, “Keith, where does S$2 million actually go?”

Most people imagine the money goes into concrete, steel and bricks. In reality, a landed rebuild is made up of hundreds of different work items.

To give you a rough idea, this is how a typical rebuilding budget is distributed:

• Site preliminaries, submissions and temporary works: 8–10%
• Structure, foundation and reinforced concrete: 28–35%
• Brickwork, roofing and architectural works: 15–18%
• Windows and external doors: 5–8%
• Mechanical & Electrical services: 10–12%
• Tiling, flooring and finishes: 10–15%
• Carpentry: 8–12%
• External works and miscellaneous items: Balance

If there’s one feature that can completely change a project, it’s the basement.

Many homeowners think a basement simply means digging another level underground. I wish it were that simple.

A basement changes almost everything. It changes the structural design, the waterproofing strategy, the excavation method and the construction sequence. Very often, it also changes the approval process.

I’ve seen homeowners underestimate this because, on paper, it’s just another floor. In reality, one structural revision can affect excavation, retaining structures, waterproofing and authority submissions.

Before you know it, you’re redesigning something that could have been discussed much earlier.

This is also one of the reasons we built Inspired Homes as a Design & Build company. We wanted the designer, builder and engineers discussing these issues together from Day One instead of working separately.

It doesn’t eliminate every challenge. Construction will always have challenges. But it gives us a much better chance of identifying problems before they become expensive.

In a traditional tender, the process is different. The architect and professional engineer complete the design first. Only then does the builder come in to price the works. At that stage, the builder is pricing what has already been designed. There is naturally less opportunity to optimise the design from a construction and cost perspective.

That doesn’t mean Design & Build is always the better choice. Traditional tender has its place too. But if your priority is budget certainty and practical cost control, having everyone working together from the beginning often leads to better decisions.

This is another question I’m asked surprisingly often. My answer is simple: every builder runs their business differently. I can only speak for how we operate.

We prepare our quotations to be as comprehensive as possible because we’d rather have an honest conversation at the beginning than an uncomfortable one halfway through the project.

To be honest, I’d rather lose a project because my quotation is realistic than win one because the price wasn’t.

Does that mean there will never be variation orders? Of course not. But in our experience, the biggest source of variation orders usually isn’t because something was left out of the quotation. It’s because homeowners change their minds during construction.

And honestly, that’s completely understandable. It’s one thing looking at a drawing. It’s another thing walking through your future home for the first time. That’s usually when new ideas come.

“Maybe glass railings would look better.”

“Let’s upgrade to natural stone.”

“Perhaps we should extend the carpentry here.”

Most homeowners don’t make these changes because they planned to. They make them because they can finally visualise the space.

There’s nothing wrong with that. The only thing to remember is this: the earlier those decisions are made, the easier and more cost-effective they usually are.

The later they’re made, the greater the chance that materials have already been ordered or completed work needs to be dismantled and redone.

That’s why we spend so much time refining the scope before construction starts. It saves time. It saves money. And it saves a lot of unnecessary frustration.

When comparing landed redevelopment quotations, the headline price is only the beginning. Two builders can quote very different amounts because they may be proposing different materials, specifications, construction methods and levels of service.

A lower quotation may look attractive initially, but homeowners should take the time to understand exactly what is included, what is excluded and what assumptions have been made.

The same principle applies to design decisions. Adding a basement, another room, premium finishes or extensive carpentry can affect far more than the individual item itself. Each additional feature creates knock-on costs across structural works, electrical services, plumbing, finishes, construction sequencing and future maintenance.

The objective shouldn’t simply be to find the lowest construction price. It should be to understand what you are buying and make sure the proposed scope aligns with your priorities, lifestyle and long-term budget.