Freehold or 99-year is the oldest argument in Singapore property. Freehold is forever; leasehold decays; everyone has an uncle with an opinion. It has been argued so many times that nobody checks it any more.
So we checked. Roov holds every private condo and apartment transaction URA has published in the last five years, from September 2021 to August 2026, and every 99-year sale carries the year its lease began. That lets us ask a sharper question than "freehold or leasehold": how many years were left, and did it matter?
What we measured
To keep it fair, we compared each project against itself. For every condo or apartment project with at least five resales in the year to August 2022 and at least five in the year to August 2026, we took the median price per square foot in each year and measured the change. That removes the usual trick of comparing a new leasehold tower in one district with an old freehold block in another. 999-year projects are counted with freehold, as the market treats them. Landed homes and executive condominiums are left out: landed is mostly freehold, and ECs are always 99-year with rules of their own.
The result: the badge is not what paid
Median resale growth over those four years:
Freehold and 999-year: 188 projects, up 15.6 per cent. 99-year, more than 85 years left: 66 projects, up 17.9 per cent. 99-year, 70 to 84 years left: 153 projects, up 24.0 per cent. 99-year, under 70 years left: 62 projects, up 22.8 per cent.
Read that again. The group that grew fastest was not freehold, and not the youngest leasehold. It was the middle-aged 99-year condo, with 70 to 84 years left.
Before anyone forwards that to their uncle: most of that gap is not about tenure. It is about price and place.
It is really about price, not tenure
Split the same projects by what they cost per square foot at the start, and tenure almost disappears:
Under $1,200 psf: freehold up 24.8 per cent, 99-year up 25.0 per cent. A dead heat. $1,200 to $1,599 psf: freehold up 16.8 per cent, 99-year up 22.9 per cent. $1,600 to $1,999 psf: freehold up 15.7 per cent, 99-year up 15.6 per cent. A dead heat again. $2,000 psf and above: freehold up 10.8 per cent, 99-year up 1.1 per cent.
So the mass market rose with the tide whatever the tenure, and the cheaper homes rose fastest, most likely because that is where the most buyers were: HDB upgraders stretching into private property. At the top, the story flips. Above $2,000 psf, freehold held its value and leasehold barely moved. That is where the freehold badge still earns its keep.
The same pattern shows district by district. In the 15 districts with at least three freehold and three 99-year projects to compare, 99-year grew faster in nine and freehold in six. Freehold led in Districts 2, 5, 9, 14, 15 and 17, including the prime Orchard address of District 9. 99-year led in the other nine, with the widest margins in Districts 12, 19 and 20, where upgraders buy.
After TOP: the launch price is the real test
The question most buyers actually ask is whether a new launch will be worth more once it is built. So we took the projects that were selling new between September 2021 and August 2022 and have since completed and started resale.
99-year: 31 projects. Median resale price now 6.5 per cent above the launch price. About one in eight is reselling below it. Freehold: 21 projects. Median 2.2 per cent above launch. About one in three is reselling below it.
It is a small sample, and a freehold launch that priced its scarcity in on day one has less room to run. But that is the point: a freehold launch price often already includes the premium you were hoping to earn later.
So is freehold still popular?
Yes, whenever buyers can get it. Freehold has been between 34 and 37 per cent of condo and apartment resales every year since 2022. That share has barely moved.
What moved is supply. Freehold was 34 per cent of new sales in 2022, 26 per cent in 2023, 15 per cent in 2024 and just 8 per cent in 2025, recovering to 14 per cent so far this year. New homes now come mostly from Government Land Sales sites, which are 99-year. A buyer who wants freehold increasingly has to buy resale, or pay for a scarce freehold launch.
And the premium? In the districts where both trade in volume, the median freehold resale now sells about 3 per cent below 99-year per square foot, against roughly level in 2022. That is not freehold being worth less. It is that freehold stock is mostly older buildings, and buyers are paying for age and condition, not the word on the title.
What this means if you are buying
Buy the building and the price, not the tenure. A 99-year condo bought at a fair price in a district with depth of demand has done as well as freehold, and in the mass market often better.
Mind the lease you are buying, not the lease you are told about. Five years is a short window in a rising market. Lease decay bites harder in the later decades, and it limits who can finance the flat after you: bank loans and CPF use both tighten as the remaining lease shortens. Our guide to how much you can borrow covers the loan side.
At the top end, freehold still matters. Above $2,000 psf, freehold held and leasehold did not. If you are buying prime, the badge is part of what you are paying for, as the District 15 freehold records show.
Check the launch price against what the land cost. A freehold launch has often priced its scarcity in already. Our guide to land bids and launch prices shows how to read that, and the Trendale Tower breakdown walks through what freehold land does to a launch price in practice.
Older leasehold has another card to play. Some of the growth in 70-to-84-year condos may reflect collective sale hopes, which got a boost when Parliament passed the lower 65 per cent en bloc threshold for older estates. Roov's en bloc calculator shows how a sale price would be shared.
Size matters more than tenure for small units. Our look at why the loss-making subsales were almost all shoeboxes found the same thing from a different direction: the exit buyer decides your return.
Run your own numbers
The market tells you the averages; your purchase is one unit. Roov's investment scorecard scores a project on yield, value, momentum and lease remaining, the valuation tool sets a unit against recent comparables, and market analysis shows the district trend. Start with what you can afford in the affordability calculator, and our guide to buying a new launch condo covers the rest of the process.
How we did it, in one paragraph: URA private residential transactions, September 2021 to August 2026, condominiums and apartments only. Growth compares each project's median resale psf in the year to August 2022 with the year to August 2026, for projects with at least five resales in each. Remaining lease is 99 years less the years since the lease began. Medians move with unit mix as well as prices, and none of this counts stamp duty, financing or fees, so treat it as the shape of the market, not a promise for any one home.
Want to know how your own home or shortlist measures up — freehold, 99-year, or the lease left on it? Roov's agent can pull the numbers for your project and talk them through with you. Get in touch.