We’re In Our 60s And Worried About Lease Decay — Should We Move From Our Older Condo To A Newer One?

Dear Stacked,

My wife and I currently live in a 1,507 sq ft four-bedroom unit at Parc Oasis, which is fully paid up. A similar unit in our block last transacted for around $1.94 million.

We had previously considered buying a three-bedroom unit at Tengah Garden Residence which the developer was selling for around $2.2 million.

But we eventually withdrew because the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) would have been close to $400,000. Moreover, the monthly repayment of about $9,000 – on a $1.2 million loan at 55% LTV – would have stretched our finances to the limit.

I am 62 this year and still in the workforce, but my wife is a homemaker and does not have much in her CPF. Our cash savings are tied up in bonds, fixed deposits, and equities which we have set aside for our retirement. Meanwhile, our two children are adults in their twenties and are starting their own families.

We are considering a 1,238 sq ft three-bedroom unit at Caspian, which has an asking price of around $2.1 million. Our objective is to sell the unit at Parc Oasis before lease decay erodes its resale value, while avoiding any ABSD since it would be remissible after we sell Parc Oasis. I estimate that our unit at Parc Oasis may depreciate by around $200,000 in the coming years, and the additional cost of moving (Buyer Stamp Duty, legal and agent fees, renovation costs ) would work out to about $219,000.

What can I do to avoid the decaying lease on my unit at Parc Oasis?

Thank you.

(This is part of an ongoing series where we answer reader questions about the property market. If you have one of your own, send it to stories@stackedhomes.com.)

Hi, and thanks for writing in!

Before we can help you analyse whether buying a unit at the Caspian is the right move for you, it is worth taking a pause to reflect on the reason for moving in the first place.

Based on what you’ve shared, this property plan rests on one belief: that the negative impact of lease decay is hurting, or will soon hurt, the value of your unit at Parc Oasis.

However, if the price trends at Parc Oasis do not match this assumption, then spending your estimated cost of $219,000 to switch to a 14-year-old condo solves a problem that you may not even have.

So, we’ll examine three things in this article. First, whether resale units at Parc Oasis are actually losing ground to younger projects in the vicinity. Next, whether the move to Caspian genuinely improves your position, or only does so on the surface. And finally, what your retirement timeline says about how much of your savings may be tied up in this move.

Has the impact of lease decay actually affected resale values at Parc Oasis?

Parc Oasis is a 99-year leasehold condominium on Jurong East Avenue 1 in District 22. Completed in 1994, the 950-unit development has about 64 years left on its lease. That makes it a relatively mature development, but not yet old enough to lose its appeal among resale buyers in the area.

This reason has to do with how CPF works.

When you buy a property, the rule is that your age plus the remaining lease has to add up to at least 95 if you want to use your CPF and take a loan in full. With 64 years left on the lease, anyone aged 31 and above is eligible. Buyers younger than 31 may still purchase, but they get less CPF support and will need to fork out more cash upfront.

For a 1,507 sq ft four-bedroom unit, there’s a high chance that most of these younger buyers were never the main catchment anyway. This means that the pool of buyers who might reasonably consider your unit is still relatively wide.

We can test this to see how the resale trajectory of Parc Oasis has performed against newer condos in the same area.

Completion year of condos in the Lakeside/Chinese Garden area

Average resale $PSF in the Lakeside/Chinese Garden area

Based on the transaction data compiled by Stacked, resale prices at Parc Oasis grew at an average annual rate of 3.83% from 2015 to 2025.

On the other hand, Caspian is another 99-year leasehold condo on Lakeside Drive in District 22. The 712-unit condo was completed in 2012 and is about 18 years younger than Parc Oasis. The average annual price growth at Caspian was about 3.93% over the same 10-year period.

Taking a step back, the average resale price of the private residential market grew at a yearly rate of 3.91% from 2015 to 2025.

This means that price growth at Parc Oasis, despite being the older project, largely kept pace with the price growth at Caspian, and the price trajectory of both developments also kept up with the nationwide figure.

The data may show that the price growth for private homes in District 22 appears to be higher, coming in at about 5.1%, but this is misleading. The district average is being lifted by new developments that have entered the market in recent years, this includes projects like Lake Grande, Lakeville, The Lakefront Residences.

These new projects launched at relatively higher price points, and do not make fair comparisons against a condo built in the 1990s. A more appropriate comparison would still pit Parc Oasis against Caspian. Both developments are located in the same neighbourhood and appeal to broadly similar buyers, but Caspian is still the relatively newer condo.

If the negative impact of lease decay were really biting, we would expect to see resale price growth at Parc Oasis falling behind Caspian. But this is not illustrated in the transaction data so far.

We would point out that most of the recent price growth stems from a buoyant property market that recovered quickly after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. From 2021 to 2023, the private residential market experienced steep price growth across most districts.

Larger-sized resale units benefitted the most from this price uplift as more buyers gravitated towards larger layouts to accommodate work-from-home arrangements.

As a result, analysing transactions over the past decade may not be the best indicator for how lease decay will behave from here. But the same point cuts both ways. If lease decay were already a major drawback, Parc Oasis would have been left behind in a market that strongly favoured newer, longer-lease projects.

However, we acknowledge that the downward price pressure of its impending lease will come eventually, just not yet.

In another 10 years, Parc Oasis will have about 54 years of lease left. At that point, the CPF rule means you need to be at least 41 years old to use your CPF and loan in full. That is when the pool of buyers will shrink by a significant degree that it will start to influence the pool of willing buyers.

So, we reckon that for some of the owners at Parc Oasis, the timeline to plan to exit their property is roughly a decade from now, not the next two or three years.

Does moving to Caspian actually improve your position?

Overall, there are some real benefits if you do decide to move into the Caspian. The condo’s land lease started in 2008, which gives it about 81 years left on its land tenure compared to the 64 years remaining at Parc Oasis.

Caspian is also a relatively younger development so most of the facilities there are expected to be in better condition compared to part of Parc Oasis. Coupled with its relatively fresh lease, both are fair reasons to want the move.

But those benefits need to be weighed against what you give up. Here’s our breakdown of the trade offs to consider.

The first thing to note is that Caspian is not exactly a new development either, the 712-unit condo was completed in 2012 and is about 14 years old.

This means that you would be spending at least $219,000 and lose 269 sq ft of living space, in exchange for about 17 more years of lease on a condo that is already well into its own ageing curve.

The $PSF price at Caspian is also about 32% higher than at Parc Oasis, so your capital buys less floor space than it does today.

For your stage of life, the smaller unit size is worth considering. A 1,238 sq ft three-bedder is comfortable for a couple, but it leaves less room if the family stays over for longer stretches, or if your children temporarily move back when they are between homes. If you expect grandchildren’s visits to become a regular pattern then that extra room also matters.

Could buying a unit at a new launch project be a better solution to the leasehold problem?

From our perspective, there is a deeper issue concerning a move to the Caspian, and it only partly solves what you are worried about.

By 2062, Caspian will be 50 years old, which is roughly where Parc Oasis is today. If you mean to live in this next home for the rest of your life, you have pushed the lease problem forward by about 17 years instead of removing it.

On the other hand, a new launch project is different since it offers a fresh 99-year leasehold that resets the clock. And looking at the example of the three-bedroom unit at Tengah Garden Residences which you nearly purchased, the price tag was not much higher than the unit you are eyeing at the Caspian.

Based on what we’ve managed to compile, two things stand out to us.

First, the price gap between Caspian and a new three-bedroom unit at Tengah Garden Residences cited in your query was only about $100,000, but the lease gap was nearly 18 years. This means that you would be paying a small price premium over the unit at the Caspian, while getting a much bigger reset in return.

Next is the fact that new launch projects let you pay in stages over the three to four years of construction, instead of all upfront like a resale transaction. That eases the cash flow strain, which matters when you are trying to keep your savings working for retirement.

However, we caution that a new launch project may not automatically be the right answer in your case either. The ABSD on a $2.1 to $2.2 million purchase is about $420,000. You can get this refunded if you sell Parc Oasis within six months of buying the new place, or for an unbuilt new launch, within six months of collecting the keys.

But you have to put up the $420,000 upfront and wait to claim it back, and IRAS does not give extensions to that six-month window. Since most of your savings are tied up in retirement instruments, parking $420,000 in stamp duty for several months is not a small ask, even temporarily.

If your real goal is to solve the issue of the depreciating lease, the comparison that matters is the price growth at Parc Oasis compared to the price trajectory of a future new launch project. From our perspective, Caspian sits in the middle as a half-measure.

So, what does this mean for your retirement plan?

Let’s assume you have more than $800,000 in your CPF Ordinary Account, and you’re still drawing an estimated monthly salary of approximately $15,000. We’ll also assume that you’re about five years away from retirement.

In this situation, it gives you room to move, but the window of opportunity shrinks quickly once you tie up a big chunk of your capital in a property purchase.

Setting aside $219,000 is a substantial amount. That’s approximately what a household might spend in one or two years of retirement. On the other hand, stretching your finances to afford a unit in a new development is also a big commitment, especially with the ABSD parked on your balance sheet for a few years while you wait for the refund.

Whichever way you go, the move is competing with the same pot of savings that needs to support you for the next 25 to 30 years.

From our perspective, the case for staying put is straightforward. With your unit at Parc Oasis fully paid, and resale prices there have largely kept pace with the condo market, it gives you the space you live in today with no added monthly housing cost.

But the case against staying is that lease decay is not a problem you want to be solving when you are in your 70s when your options and your borrowing power have narrowed.

What should you do?

Moving to Caspian is not a wrong call on its own. But for what it costs, you do not get a lot of progress on the actual problem that you want solved. You give up 269 sq ft, you spend $219,000, and the new home will start hitting the same lease questions in 15 to 20 years.

It makes more sense if you mostly want a newer building, with the longer lease as a bonus. As a fix for lease decay, it is a small step rather than a real solution.

The data also does not say you need to act now. Parc Oasis has kept pace with the broader market for the last decade, and the pool of buyers is still wide today. The squeeze becomes real about a decade from now, when the lease drops into the 50-year range and CPF starts to limit who can buy. That is the timeline to plan against.

If you want to solve the lease question properly, the future new launch option is what really does it. The progressive payment structure helps with cash flow during construction, and you can time the Parc Oasis sale to qualify for the ABSD refund. The price gap to a new launch from Caspian is small. The lease benefit is far larger.

Our suggestion is to stay in Parc Oasis for now and use this period to do two things concurrently. The first is to keep an eye on upcoming new launches in areas you would actually want to live in. There are plenty of new sites being put up for sale, and the right launch in the next two to three years gives you a decent runway before the lease pressure on Parc Oasis becomes a real concern.

The second is to consult a financial planner regarding your CPF balance, your drawdown plan, and the CPF Full Retirement Sum, as they all interact with this decision in ways that sit outside property analysis.

The signal to watch is not the age of Parc Oasis on its own. It is the gap between the price of the right new launch and what Parc Oasis would fetch when you sell it within the ABSD refund window. When that gap is small enough not to eat into your retirement savings, the move starts to make sense in a way it does not today.