In 2025 a resale freehold 2 bedroom cost 8.6% to 34.3% more per square foot than a leasehold 2 bedroom of the same building age

A freehold 2 bedroom cost 34.4% more per square foot than a leasehold 2 bedroom in 2017. In 2025 it cost 7.9% more. The premium looks as if it has almost gone. What a 2 bedroom costs, what it rents for, its rental yield and how big it is are covered in the 2 bedroom condo guide.

The premium has not gone. For homes of the same building age, freehold still cost 8.6% to 34.3% more than leasehold in 2025, and beyond the newest buildings the premium is larger in older buildings. Much of the fall in the pooled figure comes from which freehold homes reach the resale market.

What is in this note

• Did the freehold premium fall from 2017 to 2025?: the freehold premium on 2 bedroom resales from 2017 to 2025, with every freehold and leasehold sale pooled together.
• Does location explain the fall in the freehold premium?: the freehold premium measured separately in the core central region (CCR), the rest of central region (RCR) and outside central (OCR).
• How big is the freehold premium at the same building age?: the freehold premium in 2025 for homes of the same building age, from the newest buildings to those 26 years and over.
• How has the age of the homes being resold changed?: how old the freehold and leasehold homes being resold have become.

Did the freehold premium fall from 2017 to 2025?

Median resale price per square foot for a 2 bedroom:

• Freehold
• Leasehold

From 2017 to 2025 the median resale price per square foot of a leasehold 2 bedroom rose 65.4% and that of a freehold 2 bedroom rose 32.8%. The freehold premium over leasehold fell from 34.4% to 7.9%. Tenure is one of the four things held constant when we ask how much of a market-wide price move is a move in prices at all.

Read on its own, the pooled figures suggest that buyers have stopped paying for freehold. That conclusion does not hold. The rest of this note tests it with two comparisons, one by region and one by building age.

Does location explain the fall in the freehold premium?

Freehold is not spread evenly across the island. It is concentrated in the core central region (CCR) and the rest of central region (RCR), where everything costs more than in outside central (OCR). A national comparison of freehold against leasehold is therefore partly a comparison of expensive places with cheaper places.

Median resale price per square foot of freehold and leasehold 2 bedrooms within each region, in 2017 and then in 2025:

2017

Region	Freehold	Leasehold	Premium
CCR	$1,848	$1,818	+1.7%
RCR	$1,289	$1,224	+5.3%
OCR	$1,034	$959	+7.8%

2025

Region	Freehold	Leasehold	Premium
CCR	$2,272	$2,156	+5.4%
RCR	$1,739	$1,981	-12.2%
OCR	$1,594	$1,532	+4.0%

Of the six regional premiums, the highest is 7.8%, in the OCR in 2017. Most of the national 34.4% therefore reflects where freehold homes are located and little of it reflects tenure.

In the RCR in 2025 the premium was negative: a leasehold 2 bedroom there cost 13.9% more per square foot than a freehold 2 bedroom.

That is a real finding, but it does not explain the fall in the pooled premium. Region and building age are linked: leasehold homes in the RCR are 5 years newer than freehold homes there, and in the OCR 9 years newer. This comparison therefore shows that location is not the whole explanation, and it does not show what the rest is.

How big is the freehold premium at the same building age?

Median resale price per square foot of freehold and leasehold 2 bedrooms of the same building age, across the whole market in 2025, and the freehold premium:

Building age	Freehold	Leasehold	Freehold premium
0 to 5 years	$2,386	$2,039	+17.0%
6 to 10	$1,868	$1,720	+8.6%
11 to 15	$1,881	$1,565	+20.2%
16 to 25	$1,910	$1,555	+22.8%
26 years and over	$1,726	$1,285	+34.3%

The premium has not gone. In every band freehold costs more, and in the oldest band it costs 34.3% more.

Beyond the newest band, the premium increases with the age of the building, which is what the number of years left on a lease would lead one to expect. A 99-year lease with 90 years left is very nearly as good as owning outright. With 70 years left it is not, and the gap widens. The one exception is the newest band, where the freehold premium is 17.0%, against 8.6% in the band above it. New freehold 2 bedrooms are few, with 97 sales in 2025 against 805 leasehold, and they are a different kind of project.

How has the age of the homes being resold changed?

The premium is still positive at every building age in 2025, and the pooled premium fell anyway. Part of the reason is the mix of building ages being compared.

Median building age of the resale homes sold:

	2017	2021	2025
Freehold resales	8 years	11 years	14 years
Leasehold resales	7 years	7 years	9 years

The median building age of freehold resales rose from 8 years in 2017 to 14 years in 2025. The share of freehold resales under 10 years old fell from 65.4% to 28.0%.

The median building age of leasehold resales rose from 7 years in 2017 to 9 years in 2025. The share under 10 years old rose from 57.1% to 61.8%, because 99-year projects keep completing and reaching the resale market a few years later.

Each year the pooled comparison sets older freehold homes against leasehold homes that stay new. Older homes cost less per square foot and newer homes more, and that lowers the pooled premium whatever happens to the premium at any one building age.

Much of the fall in the pooled premium comes from a change in which homes are being compared. The same mechanism appears in the note on 2 bedroom prices by region: the median floor area of a resale 2 bedroom in the OCR fell 14.8% from 2017 to 2025, while in the CCR it fell 2.3%. In both notes the homes reaching resale changed, and the change appeared as a change in price.

What this tells you

A freehold 2 bedroom cost 34.4% more per square foot than a leasehold 2 bedroom in 2017 and 7.9% more in 2025. On its own that looks like buyers stopped paying for freehold. Much of that decrease comes from which homes were being compared.

Most of the 34.4% reflects where freehold homes are. Freehold is concentrated in the core central region (CCR) and the rest of central region (RCR), where everything costs more. Compared within a single region, the premium was never above 7.8% in either year. In the RCR the premium turned negative: a leasehold 2 bedroom there costs 13.9% more per square foot than a freehold 2 bedroom, and the data cannot say whether that is age, which projects happen to be selling, or something else. In outside central (OCR) the premium decreased from 7.8% to 4.0%.

Held at the same building age, freehold still costs more in every band in 2025, by 8.6% to 34.3%. Past the newest buildings the premium increases with age: 8.6% at 6 to 10 years, 20.2% at 11 to 15, 22.8% at 16 to 25 and 34.3% at 26 and over. The newest band breaks the pattern at 17.0%, on 97 freehold sales against 805 leasehold.

The mix of ages has also moved. Freehold resales aged from a median of 8 years in 2017 to 14 years in 2025, and the share under 10 years old decreased from 65.4% to 28.0%. Leasehold resales went from 7 years to 9 years, and their share under 10 years old increased from 57.1% to 61.8%. Each year the pooled figure set older freehold against newer leasehold, which pushes the measured premium down whatever happens to the premium at any one age.

So the freehold premium varies with building age, which is linked to the number of years left on a lease. A new 99-year lease has almost all its years left and an old lease does not, which is consistent with the premium increasing with age. A premium quoted without the building age and the region is measuring the mix of what sold.

What this does not tell you

• Region and age together. We hold each constant separately. Holding both at once splits 2025 into thirty groups, several of which are too small to read, so we have not done it. The two tests point the same way and neither is a substitute for the other.
• Why new freehold breaks the pattern. The 0 to 5 band carries 17.0% where the band above it carries 8.6%. With 97 freehold sales in that band, that may be the projects rather than the tenure.
• What any particular lease is worth. These are age bands, not remaining-lease years. Two 99-year homes completed the same year can have different lease commencement dates and different amounts left.
• New launches. This is the resale market throughout.

Method and data notes. Sale data to 4 August 2026.

Figures are transacted prices from URA caveat data for private condominiums and apartments, resale only, excluding collective sales and sub-sales. Bedroom count is worked out from the unit record rather than stated in the caveat, and only transactions where it resolves are counted.

Tenure is the tenure type recorded on the transaction, freehold or leasehold. Every 2 bedroom resale in the period carries one or the other; none is unclassified. That field carries only those two values, so a home held on a lease of 900 years or more is counted as leasehold here, where the 3 bedroom note on the same question reads the length of the lease instead and counts it as freehold.

Building age is the transaction year minus the project's completion year, so a home sold in 2025 in a project completed in 2015 is 10 years old. Transactions in projects with no recorded completion year are excluded from the age tables and included everywhere else.

Records with a floor area below 200 sqft or above 6,000 sqft are treated as corrupt and excluded.

Medians are used rather than averages, so a small number of unusual transactions does not move the figures.

Sale data to 4 August 2026.

30 October 2026. This note placed homes in market segments by postal district. URA places them by planning area, which moves about one in seven private sales between regions. The figures by region here use the earlier segments and differ from what the same records give now. How regions are set: How we measure prices and sales.