Research 01
Freehold Property in Singapore: What Is Permanence Worth?
A research-led look at tenure, scarcity and long-term value — across landed and non-landed residential property.
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Freehold is often treated in Singapore property conversations as shorthand for “better”. StraxPropSG takes a more careful view. A perpetual tenure removes lease expiry, but permanence by itself does not guarantee a good investment.
Location, price, demand, building age, maintenance, supply and the intended holding period still matter.
Freehold has value. The harder question is: how much should you pay for permanence?
Concept
Two different clocks
Freehold
No contractual lease expiry
99-year lease
Remaining lease declines over time
Lease decay is a real economic consideration
A 2020 NUS real-estate dissertation studying 99-year non-landed private residential transactions used hedonic modelling and found remaining lease to be relevant to transaction prices. Nationally, freehold properties were more resistant to age-related price decay — but regional results were not uniform, and in some regions leasehold properties appeared comparatively resilient.
The evidence
What does the academic evidence actually establish?
Academic evidence: remaining lease matters, but location and property characteristics also matter.
We deliberately do not plot a numeric lease-decay curve from this study. The finding is directional, and presenting it as a precise price path would overstate what the paper supports.
What this means
Tenure matters, particularly over long holding periods, but it should not be treated as an isolated predictor of performance. Property characteristics and location can alter the outcome materially.
Landed housing is a small and slow-growing part of the private stock
At end-2025, landed homes represented about 17% of completed private residential stock, while non-landed homes represented about 83%.
The evidence
How much of Singapore’s completed private residential stock is landed?
Landed
17%
73,639 units
Non-landed
83%
349,713 units
Change during 2025
- Landed
- 73,583 → 73,639
- +56 units (0.1%)
- Non-landed
- 346,286 → 349,713
- +3,427 units (1.0%)
What this means
The stock numbers support the idea that landed housing is structurally limited and expands slowly. But landed is not the same thing as freehold: Singapore has both freehold and leasehold landed homes.
Where does new private supply come from?
URA announced 9,320 private residential units on the 2026 Government Land Sales Confirmed List — more than 50% above the annual average Confirmed List supply over the preceding ten years. Government Land Sales are an important channel through which new private housing supply is introduced.
The evidence
On what tenure does state land supply enter the market?
The 2026 Chitty Road / Veerasamy Road residential Government Land Sales parcel has a 99-year lease period.
This is one verified parcel, shown as an example rather than as a summary of the whole programme.
What this means
This supports a research question worth testing: if a meaningful share of incremental state land supply enters the market on finite leases, could existing freehold residential property become relatively scarcer over time?
Landed freehold and non-landed freehold are not the same investment
Comparison
Two freehold assets, two sets of drivers
Landed freehold
- Land scarcity and the plot itself: size, shape, frontage, orientation
- Planning controls, including URA's Designated and Safeguarded Landed Housing Areas, intended to retain the character of landed housing estates
- Redevelopment potential and replacement cost
- Neighbourhood quality and stability
- Entry price and liquidity at the point of eventual sale
Non-landed freehold
- Tenure alongside building age and maintenance standards
- Sinking fund position and overall estate condition
- Location, plot attributes and redevelopment characteristics
- Project density and unit mix
- Resale liquidity, rental economics and the price premium paid over leasehold alternatives
A freehold condominium does not automatically inherit the economics of scarce landed land.
So, is freehold worth paying for?
For a long intended holding period — especially where future generations may remain owners — perpetual tenure can become more relevant.
For a shorter investment horizon, the freehold premium may matter more than the tenure itself.
The correct comparison is not “freehold versus leasehold” in the abstract; it is the particular freehold asset, at its particular price, against realistic alternatives.
Tenure matters. Price matters too. And time changes the answer.
Framework
What is permanence worth? Four questions
01
How long do you expect to hold it?
Tenure matters more the longer the horizon. Over a short hold, other factors usually dominate.
02
What premium are you paying for tenure?
The premium is a number in a specific transaction, not a fixed rate. It has to be identified before it can be judged.
03
What else are you giving up in location, quality or yield?
Paying for permanence can mean accepting a weaker location, an older building or a lower income yield.
04
Is the asset itself strong enough to deserve long-term ownership?
Permanence is only useful if the property is worth holding for a long time in the first place.
These questions are a way to structure the decision. They do not produce a recommendation on their own.
Considering a freehold property? Speak with Nicholas about the property and the decision behind it.
Sources & methodology
This first article combines official stock and supply statistics with published academic evidence. It does not claim a causal freehold return premium. Future Strax research will test tenure, location, age and transaction-price relationships more directly. Data reference dates are stated next to each visual.
- Stock figures are completed private residential stock at end-2025 (2025 Q4), with 2025 Q1 used for the within-year comparison.
- Supply figures refer to the 2026 Government Land Sales Confirmed List as announced by URA.
- No freehold-versus-leasehold performance chart is shown, because we do not yet have a suitably controlled dataset for one.
Full source list (5)
NUS ScholarBank · 2020
LEASE DECAY AND THE PRICES OF PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES IN SINGAPOREhttps://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/entities/publication/2a342ad6-1ef4-4eb4-badb-817482b86a6d
Singapore Department of Statistics / SingStat
Building, Real Estate, Construction and Housing — including “Available And Vacant Private Residential Properties (End Of Period), Quarterly”https://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/reference/ebook/industry/building-real-estate-construction-and-housing
Urban Redevelopment Authority · 3 June 2026
Private housing supply under the Government Land Sales programme sustained at a high level in the second half of 2026https://www.ura.gov.sg/news/media/pr26-41/
Urban Redevelopment Authority
Chitty Road and Veerasamy Road land-sale particulars, showing 99-year lease periodhttps://www.ura.gov.sg/land-sales/sites-for-tender/chitty-road-veerasamy-road-mar26/
Urban Redevelopment Authority
Landed Housing / Locational Criteria and Safeguarded Landed Housing Areashttps://www.ura.gov.sg/guidelines/development-control/development-control-handbooks/residential/bungalows/locational-criteria/
Continue exploring
- The Leasehold Paradox: If a 99-Year Lease Is a Wasting Asset, Why Are Buyers Still Willing to Pay So Much?
Tenure and long-term value
- Looks Like Landed. But Is It Landed Wealth?
Market and property perspectives
StraxPropSG ResearchAbout the writers