This Rare Landed HDB In Queenstown Just Sold For A Record $1.04M — With Only 41 Years Lease Left

A rare HDB landed home at 50 Stirling Road has set a new record resale price In Queenstown, after the property was sold for $1.04 million earlier this week. The two-storey home spans 1,102 sq ft and the sales price translates to $944 psf.

Officially designated as three-room* terrace flats, these landed homes were built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the predecessor to HDB, in 1968. There are about 15 rows of these terrace houses along Stirling Road, and they are among the oldest public housing stock in Singapore.

*Some of the landed flats are also classified as four-room terrace flats.

These 99-year leasehold public houses were built in 1968, and most of them have about 40 years left on their lease. There are also only a handful of these units, for example Block 50 only has eight units.

The previous record price of a similar type of terrace house in the neighbouring area was the sale of a unit at 56 Stirling Road. This transaction involved a 1,163 sq ft house that changed hands for $930,000 ($800 psf) in November 2022. That is about $110,888 less than the current record transaction.

This type of landed HDB units still see a fairly strong buying interest despite the limited amount of time left on their land lease. When we examine the transaction history of the resale homes at Block 50, there is a consistent trend of rising prices. However, this is coupled with low transaction volumes due to the very small number of these units.

Other Top Transactions at Block 50 Stirling Road

Why The Price Held Up

The only other neighbourhoods where these types of landed HDB terraces can be found is a small enclave of terraces along Jalan Ma’mor and Jalan Bahagia in Whampoa. There are no other kinds of HDB properties that are landed.

Generally speaking, HDB terraces are rarely bought with the expectation of exceptionally strong resale gains given the limited remaining years on their lease. For owner-occupiers, these homes provide an opportunity to experience something similar to a landed lifestyle, but at a cost far below that of private landed homes.

The Block 50 units also allow for front and back porch extensions, whereas some of these terrace flats only have front porches. While the owners still share a common car park, this is situated directly behind their backyard. For drivers, this still makes parking more convenient than other multi-storey car parks.

In addition, these terraces on Stirling Road are in a mature town. Besides the extensive heartland amenities, Block 50 Stirling Road is within walking distance of Queenstown MRT station on the East-West Line.

But with about 40 years left on their lease, any future buyer of these terrace flats may face steep financing limitations. For CPF usage, there could be a pro-rated limit on how much they can withdraw, and banks may not offer the full loan tenure.

As a result, these buyers will likely have to fork out a higher amount in cash if they want to own one of these rare HDB properties. Moreover, since there are a relatively few number of these flats on Stirling Road, and transactions happen only rarely, it’s difficult to predict the future price trajectory of the homes there. If the next resale unit sells many years from now, price growth may not be assured due to the advancing negative impact of lease decay.

It’s quite likely that, given the nature of these scarce properties, many of the owners of these terrace houses intend to hold on to their properties until the end of their lease. Or at the very least, until the government steps in to take back the land.