Resale HDB

Older HDB Flats Don’t Depreciate As Quickly As You Think. Here’s What The Numbers Show

  • November 20, 2021
  • 9 min read
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Ryan J

Ryan is an old school print journalist gone digital. He's lived in almost every type of housing in Singapore, from flats to landed homes. Over the past 18 years, he's been a content developer for companies large and small, a co-founder in an education business, and sometimes a voice on the radio. He also spends too much time and money on painting little plastic soldiers.

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chong
chong
1 year ago

The analysis in article is not complete. There is no free lunch. Slower depreciation in early years, will mean much faster depreciation in later years (after 50 yrs), in general.

Stacked Homes
Admin
1 year ago
Reply to  chong

Hi Chong, yes that’s right. That’s true, but that point is not so certain yet, as we’re still seeing really old HDBs holding their ground. At some point, the prices would drastically fall, so rather than a smooth depreciation over 99 years, it’s more of a long holding out and a collapse towards the end.

analyst
analyst
1 year ago

1. not much point if specific locations are not analysed e.g. TPY / AMK / BDK. I doubt we can take 5-10 years SK / PG and compare to these areas

2. Should analyse other periods besides 2021 as well. Don’t think the record COV will continue to stick for old flats. How long did the previous COV mania in 2011 last?

3. there is also some survivorship bias for old flats. Only the better old flats get sold, and the rest are unable be sold. No point selling your old flat now if u can’t get a good deal, because you will be worst off finding a new one.

Stacked Homes
Admin
1 year ago
Reply to  analyst

Hey! Yes these are the weaknesses of the study I’m afraid. There are things that we can’t account for due to a lack of data, as you’ve mentioned, comparing it to places like SK and PG. We’re primarily interested in the relationship on a whole, as we often get questions about whether or not to buy an older flat like one that is 20/25 years old as opposed to a 5-year old flat. There’re a lot of people who would encourage you to “sell quickly” and upgrade before it gets worse, but we just wanted to showcase that this is not so black and white

Lin
Lin
1 year ago

I feel that Covid period is not a true picture of these old flats’ worth due to exceptional demand for resale flats for various reasons. When worker shortages start to ease and BTOs are available again with normal lead times, it would be interesting to research again the depreciation of old resale flats.

Stacked Homes
Admin
1 year ago
Reply to  Lin

Thanks for your feedback Lin! Granted that the time period in which we analyse the data matters a lot too! This is also true not just for Covid-19, but when cooling measures were implemented, or when developers started to make units smaller in general. A lot of the market conditions are dynamic, and each period is different too. We just wanted to highlight that the depreciation is not as stark if we look at all of the data for the past year

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