Comparing Home Loans Across Banks: Rates & Fees Explained | Homejourney

Comparing home loans across banks in Singapore is easiest when you break everything down into three parts: interest rates, total fees, and lock-in conditions, then run all options through a standard calculator so you are comparing true monthly cost, not just the headline rate.

This guide explains “Comparing Home Loans Across Banks Made Easy – Rates and Fees Explained” in simple, practical terms for Singapore buyers and investors, and shows how to use Homejourney’s tools to compare home loans Singapore, run bank loan comparison, and confidently compare mortgage offers across DBS, OCBC, UOB, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Maybank, CIMB, RHB, Public Bank, Hong Leong Bank and Citibank.

This article is a focused cluster that supports our main pillar guide on comparing home loans across banks: Compare Home Loans Across Banks in Singapore: Homejourney’s Complete Guide .

What really matters when you compare home loans across banks

To compare home loans properly in Singapore, you must look beyond the marketing headline (for example, “1.45% fixed for 2 years”) and calculate your all-in cost over your realistic holding period, typically 3–5 years for HDB buyers and 5–7 years for private owners.

For most buyers in 2025–2026, the key factors are:

• Rate type: Fixed, SORA-pegged floating, or bank board / fixed deposit–pegged rates.
• Spread + benchmark: For SORA packages, the benchmark (e.g. 3M SORA) plus a fixed bank spread.
• Lock-in period & penalties: How long you’re tied to the bank and what it costs to exit early.
• Fees & subsidies: Legal subsidies, valuation fees, clawbacks, and repricing fees.
• Flexibility: Partial prepayment options, ability to convert packages, and refinancing ease.

Homejourney simplifies this by standardising all bank data and letting you compare side-by-side on our bank rate comparison page: Bank Rates .

Fixed vs SORA vs board rate – which rate type suits you?

Most major Singapore banks offer three broad types of home loan packages:

• Fixed-rate loans – Interest rate is locked for a set period (commonly 2–3 years). After that, it usually converts to a floating rate.
• SORA-pegged floating loans – Pegged to the MAS-published SORA benchmark (commonly 1M or 3M SORA) plus a spread. The rate resets monthly or every three months.
• Board / FD-pegged loans – Pegged to the bank’s internal board rate or fixed deposit rate (e.g. DBS FHR6). The bank controls this benchmark.

Since MAS completed the transition away from SIBOR and SOR, most new floating packages across DBS, OCBC, UOB, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Maybank, CIMB, RHB, Public Bank, Hong Leong Bank and Citibank are now SORA-based.

In practice, here is how locals typically choose around Singapore’s heartland estates like Tampines, Punggol, and Jurong:

• Risk-averse HDB buyers in estates like Sengkang often prefer 2–3 year fixed rates, especially when planning for a newborn and wanting predictable cash flow.
• Investors buying city-fringe condos in places like Queenstown or Redhill may accept SORA floating rates for potentially lower initial cost, knowing they might refinance after the first lock-in period.

Understanding SORA and recent rate trends

SORA (Singapore Overnight Rate Average) is the volume-weighted average rate of unsecured overnight interbank SGD transactions. MAS publishes it daily, and banks quote home loans as “3M SORA + spread”.

For example, if 3M SORA is 1.6% and the bank’s spread is 0.60%, your payable rate is 2.20% for that three-month period. As MAS data has shown in 2024–2025, SORA has trended down from its post-pandemic peaks, which is why you now see banks advertising fixed rates around the high-1% to low-2% range for strong borrowers.

The chart below shows recent interest rate trends in Singapore:

When you compare mortgage offers, always check:

• Which SORA tenor is used (1M vs 3M – 1M changes faster, 3M is more stable).
• The exact spread (e.g. +0.45% vs +0.70%). A lower spread is better because SORA itself is out of your control.
• Whether any “promotional” lower spreads step up sharply after year 2 or 3.

Homejourney tracks live 3M and 6M SORA movements and updates our bank rate comparison tables daily so you can time your loan decisions more confidently: Bank Rates .

How to compare bank home loans in 5 simple steps

If you want a clear, repeatable process to compare home loans Singapore, use this 5-step framework. It works whether you are buying a 4-room HDB in Bidadari or a condo in Pasir Ris.

Step 1: Fix your loan parameters first

Before comparing banks, lock in your own numbers:

• Property price – e.g. S$750,000 for a 4-room resale in Tampines.
• Loan amount – After CPF and cash downpayment (respecting MAS and HDB LTV limits).
• Tenure – Commonly 20–30 years, but capped by your age and MAS TDSR rules.
• Planned holding period – Realistically how long you’ll keep this loan before selling or refinancing (often 3–7 years).

You can quickly calculate your maximum loan size and safe monthly repayment using Homejourney’s mortgage eligibility and affordability calculators: Mortgage Rates or .

Step 2: Choose your preferred rate type

Use these rules of thumb:

• If you are a first-time HDB buyer with tight cash flow, consider a fixed rate for at least the first 2–3 years.
• If you are an investor with buffer and plan to refinance often, a SORA floating package may give a lower first-year cost.
• If you prioritise flexibility to sell or refinance (for example, planning to upgrade from an HDB in Woodlands to a condo near a future MRT), look for shorter lock-ins or packages with sale waivers.

On Homejourney’s bank rates page, you can filter by fixed vs floating and instantly see which bank is offering the best mortgage rate that matches your preferred type: Bank Rates .

Step 3: Compare total 3–5 year cost, not only year 1

Two packages can both show 1.60% in year 1 but have very different total costs after including year 2–3 rates and fees. A simple method locals use:

1. Key each package into the same loan calculator for 3–5 years.
2. Note the average effective rate and cumulative interest paid.
3. Include any admin, legal, or valuation fees that are not subsidised by the bank.

Homejourney does this automatically – we standardise bank spreads, promotional step-up rates, and estimated fees so you see a fair comparison of effective cost, not just marketing numbers: Bank Rates .

Step 4: Check lock-in, penalties, and clawbacks

Lock-in conditions are where many Singapore homeowners get surprised. In practice:

• Lock-in period – Usually 2–3 years for fixed packages, 1–3 years for floating.
• Early repayment penalty – Often 1.5% of the outstanding loan if you fully redeem during lock-in (e.g. selling your Punggol flat earlier than planned).
• Legal subsidy clawback