Breaking down walls: More S’porean home owners hack for larger, more flexible living

The couple, who married in December 2025, are not planning to have children any time soon, making spare bedrooms unnecessary for now.

They intend to revisit the conversation about children in five years, after fulfilling their minimum occupation period – the mandatory period of time flat owners must physically reside in their HDB unit – when they may have the option of upgrading to a larger home.

Until then, the open layout allows them to prioritise aesthetics as much as functionality.

“When the walls are up, there are a lot of limitations when it comes to designing. We need the open space to have corners that do nothing but look pretty. Without the space, we felt like we couldn’t have those corners. Every part of the house would’ve had to be functional,” says Ng.

For Loh and Yeap, the rationale was similar. Without children, they had little use for the two common bedrooms in their Bedok flat, which now function as work-from-home offices within a much larger communal space.

The hacking works also allowed natural light from 10 window panels – six in the living room and four in what was originally a common bedroom – to flow throughout the home. The result is a brighter, breezier interior with improved ventilation and a near-panoramic view from the living area.

For trade association executive Ben Teo, 35, and educator Evadne Loke, 36, removing the majority of the walls in their 93 sq m four-room BTO flat in Toa Payoh was an opportunity to achieve both spaciousness and privacy.

To shield the living room from the direct line of sight of the main door, the couple created a foyer with a settee at the entrance. With the common rooms removed, their living room floor area increased from 18 sq m to 28 sq m.

The couple lived in Teo’s parents’ five-room flat with their three-year-old son for five years before moving into their own place. With one bedroom wall removed in his parents’ house, the size of the living room was around 42 sq m, which they felt was ideal for family bonding and relaxation.

“If we had gone with our original living room size, it would have been a significant downsize,” says Loke.

When HDB first announced its White Flat concept, some property experts and designers cautioned that unconventional layouts could affect future resale demand. Teresa Low, a property agent from real estate agency Huttons Asia, however, believes concerns about resale value are often overstated.

“The common misconception is that hacking walls means lower resale value. While it is true that open-plan or reconfigured layouts will appeal to a smaller pool of buyers, it does not necessarily lower resale value,” she says.

She cites a four-room flat in Tampines with extensive hacking works done that was sold at 25 per cent profit in 2023, and a similar case for a three-room flat in Bendemeer sold at 15 per cent profit in 2024.

Low has observed a 30 per cent increase in homes with at least one wall hacked among the resale listings she has encountered between 2020 and 2025.

“Open-concept homes tend to attract stronger emotional responses than homes with conventional layouts. Buyers who appreciate open-plan homes will love the space immediately because they are larger, brighter, and typically, more unique,” she says.

“But for buyers who prioritise practicality, they may tend to eliminate the property from their considerations very quickly.”

Thoughtful design can therefore become a selling point, even in homes that have undergone extensive reconfiguration.

“If you think about it, buyers rarely pay a premium on a house for the walls, specifically. They pay a premium for how the space actually makes them feel,” Low adds.

And even if an unconventional layout proves to be a hurdle during resale, home owners who spoke with ST say they are not overly concerned, as the trade-off is often worth it, and walls and partitions can always be reinstated to suit future buyers.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal, because in the worst-case scenario, you can just rebuild the walls before you sell it. Otherwise, I think it’s fairly common for young people these days to buy a home and do a complete renovation of the entire place,” says Tan Shao Wei about his three-room flat in Bidadari.

“We need to live here for at least five years, right? So, we would like to live in a place that we like. I don’t think we can make all our home decisions around resale value.”

Part of the original living room in Loke and Teo’s Toa Payoh flat was carved out to create a bedroom for their son, concealed behind a door integrated into the television feature wall.

The couple are not ruling out the possibility of having another child, and say their son’s room can be easily modified to accommodate one more.

“Our son’s bedroom has no built-in carpentry. Everything is modular, so we can still reconfigure the room to see how it might be possible to work within the space,” says Teo.

Modular furniture, such as shelves and storage credenzas, can act as simple partitions to section areas in an open living space.

At Muji Renovation – the end-to-end interior design and renovation service under Japanese retailer Muji – interior designer Tan Ye Ting often recommends installing Muji’s stainless steel shelf units and sliding doors to clients who want modular dividers.

The downside is a lack of soundproofing, says Tan.

“There might be less privacy because gaps in between the track system and panels may allow sound leaks. There can also be a higher initial cost, as certain sliding doors or dividers may require custom carpentry work,” she says. Panels can also be acoustically treated, which can add up to 40 per cent more to the base cost of the partition.

In spite of this, around 70 per cent of people who inquire about Muji Renovation’s services are interested in removing walls, she says.

The shift is palpable, says Low of Huttons Asia, as more Singaporean homeowners prioritise lifestyle preferences over practicalities.

She says: “Every property has a target audience. While most buyers still immediately assess properties based on their current needs, I find that it is getting increasingly important to help buyers envision how they can live in a space – reconfigured or not – to suit their lifestyles.”