Most private homes in Singapore are either or on a 99-year . A 999-year lease is treated as freehold in practice. The question is not which is better in the abstract — it is what you are paying for the difference.
What happens as a lease runs down
A leasehold home does not lose value evenly. For the first few decades the difference is modest. It steepens as the remaining lease gets short, because each future buyer has less left than you did, and because financing gets harder.
- Bank loans. Lenders look at the remaining lease at the end of your loan term. A short lease can shorten the maximum tenure — which raises the monthly repayment and can push you into a lower band.
- CPF. You can use CPF freely only if the remaining lease covers the youngest buyer until age 95. Below that, the amount is pro-rated. Below 20 years remaining, CPF cannot be used at all.
- Resale. Your pool of buyers narrows exactly as these limits bite, which is what makes the decline accelerate.
What freehold is actually worth
Freehold usually commands a premium of roughly 10–20% over a comparable new leasehold home, though it varies a lot by location. The honest way to judge it is to compare psf between nearby freehold and leasehold projects of similar age and size — which is what the price trend and price check pages let you do.
If you expect to sell within ten years, a fresh 99-year lease and a freehold title will behave similarly, and the premium buys you little. If you are buying somewhere to hold for decades, or to pass on, freehold is doing real work.
The en bloc question
Older leasehold developments sometimes go : owners sell collectively to a developer, often above market value. It is a genuine possibility, not a plan — most developments never do, attempts routinely fail, and the process can take years. Do not pay a premium for the chance.