First study on impact of declining HDB leases seen leaving out too many factors

Singapore

WHAT'S said to be the first attempt to quantify the price impact of declining leases on HDB flats has drawn criticism that the study ignores too many of the factors that operate in the Singapore property market.

The study by UrbanZoom, a homegrown artificial-intelligence-enabled research portal, found that HDB flats would depreciate, on average, 0.67 per cent per year across the first four decades as their leases run down. But this assumes a stagnant economy and property market with zero growth.

But critics point out the fact that this theoretical value decline has been more than offset by economic and property market growth since the…