PropertyGuru, 99.co or riil Estate: how to choose a property platform

Most home searches in Singapore start on a property portal, because that is where the listings are. We are riil, the team behind PropertyMarket, where this guide lives, and we build riil Estate, so we have a view on which platform suits which stage of a search. This piece sets out where PropertyGuru and 99.co are strong, where they do the same things riil Estate does, and where we think riil Estate helps most.

The short version

On a phone, swipe the table sideways to compare all three platforms.

The rest of this piece is the evidence for each row, with links to the pages we used.

What the portals do well

PropertyGuru and 99.co are the default for a reason. On the HDB search pages we opened, the listing cards we inspected showed price, price per square foot, built year and walking distance to the nearest MRT or LRT ^[1][2]. 99.co also covers new launches, rentals and commercial listings, and publishes a searchable HDB resale transaction table by town, street and flat type, plus a resale price calculator ^[2][3].

Their listing pages carry real decision tools:

• On the PropertyGuru listing we opened: a "What's nearby" section with MRT and LRT, bus, schools, shopping, healthcare, food and drink, parks and places of worship layers, a mortgage breakdown, a price history panel, and a saved-place commute time ^[4].
• On the 99.co listing we opened: nearby categories including supermarkets, clinics, banks and ATMs, drive times to Changi, Raffles Place and Orchard Road, a comparison of the asking price to the district average, past sales in the same block by floor range, and X-Value price tracking ^[5].

So for the plain jobs of finding listings, checking the nearest station and school, estimating a mortgage and seeing what a block sold for, the portals already cover you. We would not tell anyone to skip them.

Filters and maps

• PropertyGuru's HDB filter panel covers flat model (3A, 4NG, 5 Premium, Exec Maisonette and more), price, bedrooms, a Verified Listings option, floor size, distance to MRT (under 250 m to under 1.5 km), PSF, tenure, build year, floor level, unit features, facilities, furnishing and a keyword box ^[1].
• 99.co's covers HDB sub type, price, bedrooms and bathrooms, floor size, keywords, PSF, floor level, built year, availability date, furnishing, view and features such as balcony, corner unit and dual key ^[2].
• In the signed-out panels we inspected, we did not find school-distance, citizenship and ethnic quota, or extension controls in either. On the portal listings we opened, such points appeared as agent-written tags and description lines, such as "Ethnic Quota Eligible", "No need extension" and "Within 2km to 17 primary schools" ^[2][4]. Useful, but they depend on what each agent chooses to write.
• Both portals have a map view of listings. PropertyGuru's shows listing clusters on a Google map with Public Transport and Traffic toggles ^[1]. 99.co's shows clusters with MRT lines drawn, a draw-an-area tool and street view ^[2].

How the portals make money

Both portals sell subscription and lead products to agents ^[6][7]. Since 2024, a buyer who enquires on PropertyGuru passes through its Verified Leads flow, where the platform verifies the enquiry before the agent receives it. PropertyGuru says the aim is to filter spam; about 2,600 agents petitioned against it ^[8][9]. We note this as context on how the marketplace runs, not as a verdict on buyers' results.

Where the riil Estate map is different

The riil Estate map is built the other way around: the map is the search, not a view of results. Here is what that means in practice, including where riil Estate still loses.

The neighbourhood sits on the search map

You can switch on MRT and LRT lines and stations, bus stops, education, healthcare, hawker and food, groceries, worship and parks, most with subtypes to narrow further, and read them around the homes themselves rather than on a separate listing tab ^[10]. The map's own guide notes you can click a facility for its details; on listing pages those details run deep, down to a hawker centre's stall list and cleaning dates ^[10][11]. A listing tray scans the results while the map stays in view, and it can follow the map as you pan ^[10].

We wrote about why on our blog: a listing tells you a flat exists, but the decision is the life around it, and that life is easier to read on one map than stitched together from tabs ^[15].

Filters built around HDB rules

The filter panel goes past price and size into the rules that decide which flats you can actually buy ^[10]:

• Primary school priority: within 1 km, 1 to 2 km, or within 2 km, labelled on the page as verified with OneMap's official school query. We read the label; we did not independently test the distances.
• Citizenship and ethnic eligibility, extension of stay (seller needs stay or not) and contra (seller applying or not), so flats you cannot buy, or cannot move into on time, drop out early.
• Remaining lease in years, price and price per area, floor area, storey range, bathrooms and balcony.
• Town or region, plus a "near facility" filter for MRT, bus, education, hawker, groceries and parks.
• Managed by agent or owner, if you prefer dealing with one side.

The portals cover price, flat type and features well ^[1][2]. The rule-based filters are where the panels differ, at least in the signed-out versions we inspected.

A plain-language brief becomes filters you can adjust

Type "Clementi 4-room under 900k, 80 years lease left" and the map turns it into filters: town set to Clementi, flat type 4-room, price capped at $900k, lease at 80 years minimum, each as a chip you can remove or change ^[10]. We tried this signed out and it worked on the first try. The search box also shows a voice-input option, and the filter panel a save control for filter sets; we did not test those two.

Price evidence on the pins

A Prices toggle switches the map pins between current asking prices and last transacted prices ^[10]. The map's own legend explains the colouring: red means the asking price is more than 10% above the closest matching sale, green means more than 10% below, grey means no sale data. You can read whether a street is asking above or below recent evidence before you open a single listing.

Behind that sits a free valuation tool with its own published backtest: riil reports a 3.3% median error across 19,476 HDB resales from January to September 2026, and 92% of estimates within 10% of the actual sale price, broken down by year and postal district ^[12]. These are riil's own figures, which we did not independently validate, and the page is labelled Preview, so read them as early claims rather than a guarantee. Our lease and transaction data is derived from HDB's official historical resale dataset on data.gov.sg ^[13].

The overlap here is real. Both portals show price history on their listing pages ^[4][5], and 99.co's transaction table covers the same public record ^[3]. The difference is where the evidence sits: on riil Estate it is on the search map itself, so you compare areas before you compare units.

What a riil Estate listing page shows

Open a listing and the facts that decide an HDB purchase sit in one place ^[11]:

• Sale and eligibility facts as data, not agent prose: extension stay, contra, ethnic and SPR eligibility, and the eligibility date.
• The agent's name with CEA registration and agency licence numbers.
• Nearby places at 500 m to 5 km, with both straight-line distance and walking time, so "near the MRT" becomes a number you can test.
• Unexpected depth: hawker centres list their stalls and cleaning schedules, bus stops list their services, some places show wheelchair access.
• A floor plan, the listing's source, and when it was last updated.

Every listing card also shows Save and Compare controls ^[10]; we did not test a full comparison flow.

Where riil Estate still loses

Inventory. The map's own counter showed 1,803 listings across 1,575 addresses when we checked on the afternoon of 21 October 2026 ^[10]. Both portals also cover rentals, new launches and commercial listings, while the riil Estate map today centres on the HDB resale workflow we examined ^[1][2]. riil Estate's site says owners and agents can publish directly at no cost, and that listings leave when the opportunity does ^[14]; 99.co shows "Direct Owner Listing" and "No Agent Fee" tags on some listings ^[2], so direct sellers exist on both.

So which should you use?

• Use a portal when you want a bigger shelf, rentals, new launches, or an agent's contact in one place.
• Use riil Estate when you are buying an HDB resale flat and want to narrow by the rules that apply to you, read the neighbourhood around each candidate on the same map, and check asking prices against recorded sales.
• Use either when you already have a listing in mind: the portals' listing pages and riil Estate's overlap on nearby places and price history.

The honest version is the one we wrote on our blog: buyers still start where the listings are, and "there is no point pretending otherwise (for now?)" ^[15]. Our bet is that the deciding half of the journey can be much better than the scrolling half.

Questions worth asking of any platform

• Who paid for this listing to be here, and what did paying buy them?
• What stands between me and the seller when I send an enquiry?
• Where does the price history come from, and can I see the original record?
• Can I check the neighbourhood and my eligibility rules without opening five more tabs?
• What happens to this listing once the home is sold?

How we compared

On 21 October 2026, signed out, we opened each portal's HDB for-sale search page with its filter panel and map view, one HDB listing page on each, and 99.co's HDB resale price page ^{[1][2][3][4][5]}. On riil Estate we used the map with its layers and filters, ran a plain-language search, opened listing pages and read the valuation page ^[10][11][12]. We read filter option names rather than applying every filter, and we did not use logged-in or agent tools. Features change often, so check the live pages.