Living on a 99-year clock in Singapore's leasehold homes

As the lease on their homes runs down, some worry about the falling value of the inheritance. Others simply treasure what their homes give them.

- Joyce Lim

My condo is a leasehold one, bought 20 years ago at a price I could afford.

I don’t think I will outlive the 99-year lease. That thought doesn’t bother me, especially when the unit has already served its purpose as a home, an investment and a place of memories.

I live in Tanjong Rhu, where most developments sit on 99-year leases. Today, the value of my condo has appreciated threefold. Along the way, friends have urged me to sell it as the lease runs down. But I have no plans to.

I like the walks in the neighbourhood, the familiarity of faces in the lift lobby, the ease of getting to the beach and to the city from where I live. The home still suits my lifestyle and I enjoy living there. That, to me, is value enough.

My thinking may put me in a minority on a topic that affects many of us. Most households in Singapore live in Housing Board flats, not private condominiums. But condos, too, have leases that end, and the questions about what a home is for and what we hope to leave behind are the same ones that HDB flat owners face.

Once a lease expires, the land goes back to the state. As time runs out in the later years of a lease, the prices are likely to soften.

But between the day you collect your keys and the day the lease runs out lie several decades of living. In those years, a property can give you more than capital gains. It can offer stability, community and the daily familiarity that never appears in a valuation report.

A couple who bought an HDB flat in a mature estate 30 years ago may have seen a new MRT line arrive, watched coffee shops and retail shops multiply, and built up a network of neighbours who help one another.

The flat’s remaining lease today may worry them. But the flat has already delivered decades of use and, in many cases, paper gains they never imagined when they first moved in.