Lease decay is one of the most repeated warnings in Singapore property conversations. The logic is simple: HDB flats sit on 99-year leases. As that lease shortens, the flat becomes worth less. By the time it dips below 60 years, banks restrict financing. Below 30 years, you can barely sell it at all. So the story goes.
But what does the transaction data actually say? We pulled resale records across Toa Payoh — Singapore's oldest HDB town, where lease decay is most visible — and found a picture that is considerably more complicated than the conventional narrative.
Where Lease Decay Is Concentrated
Singapore has roughly 1.1 million HDB flats. The vast majority still have 60 or more years on their leases. Flats with fewer than 45 years remaining are concentrated in a handful of towns, and Toa Payoh is at the top of that list.
The reason is simple geography and history. Toa Payoh was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, making its original blocks among the oldest public housing stock in the country. Many of those leases commenced in 1968 or 1969, which means some blocks are now sitting at around 43–44 years remaining. That threshold is significant: it is the point at which CPF usage for purchase becomes restricted.
What this means in practice is that Toa Payoh provides a natural laboratory for studying lease decay. You have old blocks and relatively newer blocks in the same town, transacting in the same market, with buyers facing the same local amenities and MRT access.
Prices Tell a Different Story
Here is where the data surprises. Pulling resale transactions for Toa Payoh blocks with fewer than 45 years of lease remaining, median PSF in 2019 was approximately $325. By 2025, that figure had climbed to approximately $500 PSF — a 54% increase in six years.
That is not a market in decline. That is a market outperforming inflation by a wide margin, on flats that conventional wisdom says should be losing value.
Several factors explain this. First, Toa Payoh has excellent infrastructure: it is a mature estate with the Circle Line and the North–South Line, legacy wet markets, and proximity to Orchard Road. Buyers pay for location. Second, the pool of buyers willing to pay cash-heavy for older flats is smaller, but they exist — typically older Singaporeans who are not CPF-dependent and who want to stay in a neighbourhood they know. Third, the asking prices on older blocks are still lower in absolute dollar terms than new BTO flats or newer resale blocks, which creates a budget-driven demand floor.
Transaction Volume Has Not Dried Up
Another prediction of the lease decay narrative is that volume should collapse as leases shorten. Fewer buyers can get financing; fewer buyers want the exposure; so fewer transactions happen.
Toa Payoh's data does not show a volume cliff. Older blocks continue to transact every quarter. The volume is lower than in newer estates, but it is not near zero. It has also remained relatively stable year-on-year rather than exhibiting the steady downward drift that a simple lease decay model would predict.
Part of the reason is that older blocks rotate through a specific buyer type rather than competing directly with newer resale flats. That niche is narrow, but it is persistent.
The Widening Gap
The most honest picture is this: both old and new Toa Payoh estates are rising, but the gap between them is widening. Newer blocks — those with 70 or more years of lease remaining — command a meaningful PSF premium over the older stock. That premium was around 15–20% in 2019. By 2025, it had grown closer to 25–30%.
So lease decay is being priced in. The market is not ignoring it. But it is pricing it in gradually, as a discount relative to newer stock, rather than as an absolute price collapse for the old stock itself.
This matters for buyers making a decision. If you are choosing between a 1970s block and a 1990s block in the same town, you should expect to pay less for the older one — and you should expect that discount to persist or widen over time. But you should not expect the old block to become unsellable or to crater in value in the short term.
What This Means for Buyers
Lease decay is a real risk, and it is more pronounced once a flat drops below 60 years. CPF restrictions, bank financing constraints, and the shrinking buyer pool are all genuine factors that eventually compress both price and volume.
But the Toa Payoh data suggests that the transition is gradual and location-dependent. A flat in a well-connected, mature town with strong infrastructure does not behave the same way as a flat in a peripheral estate. Pricing the risk right requires looking at the actual transaction record, not just the lease number on paper.
Plot65 lets you filter resale transactions by town, flat type, and remaining lease band so you can see the actual price trajectory for the specific block or area you are considering. The data is often more nuanced than the headlines suggest.