HDB lease decay: how much cheaper is a flat with 50 years left?
HDB resales since 2024: flats with 45 to 54 years of lease left sold for a median 41% less per sqm than those with 85 to 94, in the same town.
In HDB resales from 2024 to Sep 2026, flats with 45 to 54 years of lease left sold for a median 41% less per sqm than flats with 85 to 94 years left in the same town, flat type and year. The gap grows as the lease shortens: 12% at 75 to 84 years left, 19% at 65 to 74 and 24% at 55 to 64.
How we measured it
We took all 241,708 HDB resales registered from Jan 2017 to Sep 2026, from HDB resale flat prices on data.gov.sg (Singapore Open Data Licence). Oct 2026 is left out because the month is not complete. The medians, groups and gaps are Propwise calculations, as at Sep 2026. We worked in three steps.
- Price per sqm. Resale price divided by floor area in square metres.
- Remaining lease. We used the “remaining lease” in HDB’s file, which is usually exact to the month on the sale date. We checked it against the lease start year plus 99 years. That sum runs about half a year short, because the file gives only the start year. About 4% of deals since 2024 (6% of all deals) would change band on the year-only sum.
- Like with like. We grouped deals by town, flat type and year of sale. In each group we compared the median price per sqm of each lease band with the 85 to 94 band. A band needed at least 20 deals in the group. We then took the middle value of those gaps across all groups, weighting each group by its smaller deal count.
This holds town, flat type and year fixed. It does not hold storey, floor area, flat model or distance to the MRT fixed.
The like-for-like gap
| Years of lease left | 2024 to Sep 2026: gap | Groups | Deals (band / 85 to 94) | 2017 to Sep 2026: gap | Groups | Deals (band / 85 to 94) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95 or more | −1% | 9 | 280 / 2,191 | +1% | 94 | 4,797 / 20,187 |
| 75 to 84 | −12% | 74 | 6,453 / 12,916 | −15% | 274 | 33,446 / 40,441 |
| 65 to 74 | −19% | 81 | 9,443 / 11,561 | −21% | 245 | 27,489 / 27,205 |
| 55 to 64 | −24% | 119 | 13,674 / 12,056 | −26% | 337 | 37,904 / 28,449 |
| 45 to 54 | −41% | 65 | 6,780 / 4,887 | −41% | 139 | 12,826 / 10,477 |
| Under 45 | −49% | 14 | 1,145 / 861 | −48% | 20 | 1,389 / 1,178 |
Source: Propwise calculation from HDB resale flat prices (data.gov.sg), as at Sep 2026 (transactions Jan 2017 to Sep 2026). Gap = typical difference in median price per sqm against the 85 to 94 band. Groups are town, flat type and year of sale.
Source: Propwise calculation from HDB resale flat prices (data.gov.sg), as at Sep 2026. Paler bars (95 or more, under 45) rest on few groups (9 and 14). Gaps are not a forecast for any one flat.
Flats with 95 or more years left sold for about the same as flats with 85 to 94, on thin counts. The biggest single step is from 55 to 64 years left (−24%) to 45 to 54 (−41%).
As a check, a regression on all 72,558 deals from 2024 to Sep 2026, with town, flat type and quarter held fixed, puts the five shorter bands at −12%, −21%, −26%, −36% and −43%.
Median price per sqm by band, island-wide
| Years of lease left | 2024 to Sep 2026: S$ per sqm | Deals | 2017 to Sep 2026: S$ per sqm | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95 or more | 7,292 | 356 | 5,224 | 6,391 |
| 85 to 94 | 7,251 | 22,568 | 6,290 | 62,903 |
| 75 to 84 | 5,909 | 7,751 | 4,534 | 44,859 |
| 65 to 74 | 5,777 | 13,524 | 4,715 | 48,597 |
| 55 to 64 | 5,904 | 17,600 | 5,102 | 56,299 |
| 45 to 54 | 6,000 | 8,568 | 5,495 | 20,173 |
| Under 45 | 5,679 | 1,297 | 5,478 | 1,729 |
Source: Propwise calculation from HDB resale flat prices (data.gov.sg), as at Sep 2026 (transactions Jan 2017 to Sep 2026). Median of town and flat-type cells with at least 20 deals per band, weighted by deals.
Do not read lease decay from this table. The line falls from 85 to 94 years to 75 to 84, then stays flat. Each band draws on different towns and flat types (76 cells in the 85 to 94 band since 2024, 48 in the 45 to 54 band), and the 2017 to 2026 column mixes price levels across years. The like-for-like table is the better guide.
Four large towns, 4-room flats
Median price per sqm in S$ since 2024, with deals in brackets. A dash means fewer than 20 deals.
| Years of lease left | Woodlands | Bukit Batok | Hougang | Bedok |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95 or more | - | 6,762 (67) | - | - |
| 85 to 94 | 6,667 (547) | 7,130 (949) | 7,156 (610) | 9,247 (249) |
| 75 to 84 | 5,722 (164) | 6,280 (100) | 6,286 (62) | 7,989 (123) |
| 65 to 74 | 5,500 (1,388) | 5,870 (113) | 5,990 (387) | 6,745 (122) |
| 55 to 64 | 5,302 (208) | 5,344 (608) | 5,904 (631) | 6,099 (303) |
| 45 to 54 | 4,611 (97) | - | 5,301 (32) | 5,690 (506) |
Source: Propwise calculation from HDB resale flat prices (data.gov.sg), as at Sep 2026 (4-room deals Jan 2024 to Sep 2026).
In each town the median falls at every step from 85 to 94 years down to the shortest band shown.
Source: Propwise calculation from HDB resale flat prices (data.gov.sg), as at Sep 2026. The figures are those in the table above; the deal counts are there too.
What the pattern does and does not mean
It does mean that, in the same town and flat type, buyers paid less per sqm for shorter leases, and the discount grew.
It does not show that lease length caused the gap. Older flats differ in location inside the town, size, storey and condition. Lease is one factor among several.
It does not predict what your flat will fetch. The tables compare different flats at one time. They do not follow one flat as its lease runs down.
The 95 or more and under 45 bands rest on few groups (9 and 14 since 2024). Treat them as rough.
How the CPF lease rule limits financing
The CPF Board says the remaining lease must cover the youngest buyer using CPF to age 95. If it does, you can use CPF up to the lower of the purchase price and the valuation price. If it does not, you can use only a percentage of that lower figure.
CPF’s terms for using CPF under the Housing Scheme (last updated 7 Sep 2026) give a rough guide in its Table 1. It shows the most CPF you can use, as a share of the lower of the price and the valuation, for a lease that does not cover the youngest owner to age 95:
| Remaining lease | Youngest owner 25 | Youngest owner 35 | Youngest owner 45 | Youngest owner 55 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70 years or more | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 60 years | 80% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 50 years | 60% | 75% | 100% | 100% |
| 40 years | 40% | 50% | 67% | 100% |
Source: CPF Board, terms for use of CPF under the Housing Scheme, Table 1 (last updated 7 Sep 2026). CPF calls the table a rough guide. Darker means more CPF can be used.
The same page says no CPF savings can be used if the remaining lease is 20 years or less. CPF calls Table 1 a rough guide, so check the exact figure for your purchase with CPF.
A buyer aged 40 needs 55 years of lease left for full CPF use. A buyer aged 35 needs 60.
Take the bands. A flat with 55 to 64 years left meets the rule only if the youngest buyer is about 31 to 40 or older. A flat with 45 to 54 years left needs a youngest buyer of about 41 to 50 or older. The data cannot say whether the rule explains the step in prices at those lease lengths.
What is behind the lease discount
The tables show the discount. They cannot show why it exists. Four forces are named most often. For each, we say how firm the evidence is. No source we found measures how much each one counts.
1. Fewer years of use left (a modelled effect). The PropertyNet Research Team, a property portal, describes Bala’s curve, a model that sets a leasehold’s value against freehold. It puts a fresh 99-year lease at about 96% of freehold, a lease with 60 years left at about 80%, and one with 50 years left at about 74.7%. That is about 22% below a fresh lease (a Propwise calculation). Our measured gap at 45 to 54 years is 41% against the 85 to 94 band. So the curve alone does not explain what buyers paid. Something else adds to it.
2. Financing rules shrink the buyer pool (the rule is a measured fact; its effect on price is an analyst view). The CPF Board and HDB link both CPF use and HDB loan size to whether the lease covers the youngest buyer to age 95, as gov.sg explains. The grid above shows the limits. The PropertyNet piece says these limits narrow demand for flats with under about 60 years left. The data cannot show how much of the gap this explains.
3. Buyers prefer newer flats (an analyst view). SRI’s Mohan Sandrasegeran said in a December 2025 EdgeProp report that buyers prefer newer flats, and that few flats reaching their minimum occupation period in 2025 helped support prices. Huttons also tied part of the Marine Parade price fall in Q2 2026 to ageing leases, as our HDB resale price index article reports. Both are views. Neither is a measured cause.
4. Redevelopment hopes are fading (a policy fact, with open details). The PropertyNet team reports that Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat said the Government does not plan to continue SERS and will use VERS instead. Gov.sg describes VERS as a vote by owners in selected precincts, for flats about 70 years old. ERA reports that the Minister plans to scale VERS up by the late 2030s, and that payouts are expected to be less generous than SERS. A flat with 50 years left is about 49 years old, so it reaches 70 in about 20 years (a Propwise calculation). MND has not yet set the precincts, the terms or the voting threshold, so buyers cannot price a payout.
Owners have one exit that keeps them in the flat. The CPF Board explains that the Lease Buyback Scheme lets eligible seniors sell part of the lease to HDB and stay, with proceeds going to the Retirement Account. We found no evidence of how it affects resale prices.
