The decay curve, measured. When your lease starts costing you.
"99 years is basically forever." "Leasehold is a melting ice cube." Singapore's favourite argument — usually fought with anecdotes. We fought it with 536 projects instead, pricing every leasehold against its own district by years remaining. Here is the curve.
Farhan Adenan · 2 Aug 2026 · 10 min read
- With 90+ years left, leasehold trades at 106% of district — new leasehold out-prices its surroundings. Decay: not yet.
- The slide is staged: 80s → 91%, 70s → 73%, 60s → 67% of district PSF.
- Below 60 years the floor drops: 50s → 51%, 40s → 49%. Financing and CPF limits do the pushing.
- The twist: the median freehold project trades at just 85% of district — because freehold stock is old and boutique. Tenure isn't the only thing being priced.
Each project's last-done PSF divided by its district's 12-month average PSF, bucketed by lease remaining. URA caveats to 15 Jul 2026.
The curve, decade by decade
The curve is not gentle, and it is not linear.
Exhibit 1. Median psf as a percentage of the district median, by remaining lease, across 536 leasehold projects. The fall from 106% to 49% is not a straight line: the first decade costs 15 points and the decade from 60 to 40 years costs 18 more on a much smaller base. Source: URA private residential caveats to 23 Jun 2026 (REALIS); POV matched-pair exit model. POV analysis.
| Lease remaining | Median PSF vs district | Projects | What's happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90–99 years left | 106% | 101 | New launches + near-new resale — the premium decade |
| 80–89 years left | 91% | 215 | The gentle first step — barely felt |
| 70–79 years left | 73% | 114 | The second step — now it's real |
| 60–69 years left | 67% | 81 | Financing still clean; price already isn't |
| 50–59 years left | 51% | 15 | CPF and loan limits start biting hard |
| 40–49 years left | 49% | 9 | Cash-buyer territory; price ≈ half the district |
| Freehold (median) | 85% | 856 | Old + boutique stock — see section 03 |
Read "% of district" loosely as "how the market prices this stock against everything around it, new launches included."
The shape matters more than any single number. From 99 to about 80 years, decay is nearly invisible — a 15-point drift over two decades, indistinguishable from ordinary ageing. From 80 to 70, the market wakes up: an 18-point drop in one decade, the steepest healthy-stock step on the curve. And below 60, pricing stops being about homes and starts being about financing mechanics and en-bloc probability.
The two cliffs are man-made
Both cliffs are policy, not physics.
Cliff one (~75 years left) is the mortgage horizon. A 35-year-old buying a flat with 70 years left can still die of old age before the lease does — but their bank tenure, their CPF usage rules and crucially their future buyer's financing all start compressing. Every year past this point shrinks the pool of people who can finance the purchase from you.
Cliff two (~60 years left) is the CPF wall. When lease-remaining minus buyer-age arithmetic starts failing the rules, CPF usage caps out and loans shorten. The buyer pool flips from "families with CPF" to "cash-rich pragmatists" — a smaller, harder-bargaining crowd. That is why the curve halves rather than glides: 51% at 50-something years isn't decay, it's a different market.
The consolation: the same rules mean the curve is predictable. You will not be ambushed by lease decay — you can read your own position on this table today and plan the exit a decade before either cliff.
The freehold twist nobody mentions
Freehold sits below the newest leasehold. That is not a typo.
Exhibit 2. The freehold median sits below both of the top leasehold decades. Freehold is not a price premium in this data — it is a mix effect. The freehold stock is old, boutique and unfashionable, and that drags its median under new leasehold that happens to be new. Tenure and vintage are different variables, and the market prices the second one. Source: URA private residential caveats to 23 Jun 2026 (REALIS); POV matched-pair exit model. POV analysis.
The table's strangest row: the median freehold project trades at just 85% of its district — below leasehold stock with 80+ years left. Is freehold worthless? No — read what the row actually measures. Singapore's freehold stock is disproportionately old, low-rise and boutique: walk-ups, 90s condos, small plots. The district averages they're compared against are dominated by brand-new 99-year launches with showflat pricing. The 85% is the price of age and smallness, net of the tenure premium hiding inside it.
The honest like-for-like: a freehold and a 99-year unit of the same age and format typically show a 10–15% tenure gap — real, but far smaller than the tribal argument suggests. Freehold's true value isn't this decade's resale premium; it's that freehold never boards the decay staircase at all. You pay ~10–15% once to never meet the 75-year cliff. Whether that's worth it depends entirely on your holding horizon — a 10-year owner probably wastes the premium; a legacy buyer is buying the only tenure that outlives the table above.
The trade almost nobody runs on purpose
The decade nobody buys on purpose is the one with the margin.
Most owners treat lease decay like weather — something that happens to them. But this is the rare risk with a published schedule: flat to ~80 years, real at 75, brutal below 60. The rational play is time-of-ownership arbitrage: buy at 90+, enjoy the flat top for a decade, and hand the keys to the staircase before it starts — selling to a buyer whose shorter horizon genuinely fits the remaining lease. Musical chairs, except the music schedule is printed on the wall.
The two mistakes are symmetric: the leasehold-phobic overpay 10–15% for freehold they’ll sell in eight years (insurance for a fire after they’ve moved out); the decay-deniers hold through the 75-year cliff waiting for VERS — a policy option, not a plan, with terms nobody has seen. Both lose to the boring middle: match the tenure to the horizon, and let someone else pay for the ideology.
Who this affects
The curve is a cost to one buyer and a discount to another.
If you own
If you own leasehold, the expensive decade is ahead of you, not behind
Between 80 and 60 years remaining the median goes from 91% of district to 67% — and that is the stretch most owners sit through without noticing, because the fall is gradual and the headline price is still rising in nominal terms.
The two cliffs are man-made: financing rules and CPF usage tighten at defined lease levels, which is what turns a smooth decay into a step. Both are policy, so both can move — but plan on the ones that exist today.
If you invest
If you are buying the short end deliberately, know what you are underwriting
At 40–49 years the median is 49% of district, which is a genuine discount and a genuinely small market — nine projects. Financing narrows, CPF usage narrows, and your exit buyer faces a shorter lease than you did.
The trade only works if the yield covers the decay while you hold it, and if you are honest that you are buying an income stream on a wasting asset rather than a home that will appreciate. Some households want exactly that. Most who end up there did not plan to.
Decay is real, staged, and entirely forecastable.
- Holding 99-year stock with 80+ years: relax — the curve says the market hasn't started charging you yet. Your planning window is the 75-year cliff.
- Shopping the 60s-lease discount: the 33% discount is fair value, not a bargain — unless you're paying with a horizon shorter than the lease's troubles.
- The freehold decision: ~10–15% like-for-like, paid once, to never board the staircase. Rational for legacy horizons, vanity for short ones.
Where is your lease on the curve?
I'll place your exact block on the decay curve, project your position at your intended selling age, and tell you honestly whether to hold through the cliff or exit before it. Data, not doctrine.
Freehold under $1,400 psf still exists — in exactly 22 places
856 freehold projects tracked; only 22 with real volume still trade under $1,400 psf. The whole list, with exit records.
The MOP wave map: 14,000 Tengah flats and your next buyer
14,124 Tengah flats hit MOP soon. Where the upgrader waves land next — and which condos are positioned to catch them.
How to check us: every number in this piece is computed from the primary record — URA caveats to 15 Jul 2026 — not from third-party estimates or hearsay. The links below are the official policy and news record behind the contextual claims.
- URA private residential transaction data (REALIS) — the caveat record every table in this article is computed from
- Housing & Development Board — BTO supply pipeline and Minimum Occupation Period policy
- data.gov.sg — HDB resale flat prices — the official open dataset behind all HDB figures
Dataset — Each project's last-done PSF divided by its district's 12-month average PSF, bucketed by lease remaining. URA caveats to 15 Jul 2026.
Methodology & honesty notes. Curve computed from 536 leasehold projects with recorded lease-start years and 8+ transactions in 24 months: each project's last-done PSF divided by its district's 12-month average PSF, bucketed by decade of lease remaining. District averages are transaction-weighted (new-launch heavy), which depresses every ratio equally and preserves the curve's shape. Thin buckets (40s, 50s) are directional. The like-for-like tenure gap cited (10–15%) reflects age-matched comparisons within districts. CPF and financing rules referenced are as generally applied at writing — verify current rules for any specific purchase. POV Realty and Farhan Adenan are not the marketing agents for any project or listing referenced, and nothing here is financial advice — it's a starting point for your own due diligence, which is exactly how we'd use it.
Farhan Adenan · CEA Registration R068636D · Senior Associate Division Director, Huttons Asia Pte Ltd (Estate Agent Licence L3008899K).