Women Role in Today's Society
L99 Still Cool!
This piece was inspired by yet another comment that I received recently. “Don’t talk to me unless it is freehold.” Is it really true that Freehold always trumps leasehold? In an ideal world, as ANZ bank is prone to say nowadays, Freehold properties in the same location as leasehold properties would sell for similar prices. However, that is not true, Freehold is always more expensive, and people tend to forget the real cost of buying Freehold vs Leasehold. For the same amount of money that you could buy a Freehold property, you could probably buy a leasehold property in a much better location. When we consider the eternal truth that for property, location is everything, we wonder why some of us have chosen to believe that “Freehold is everything”. To carry an illustration to the extreme, a freehold property in the middle of the Australian outback desert is not going to have as much property gain as a 99 year leasehold property in Singapore. If you consider some properties that have made the most capital gains over the last few years, such as The Sail @ Marina Bay, you could not help but notice that Freehold does not have the final word in property transactions.
So why does Freehold still hold such a special place in our psyche. For Asians, it probably went way back to when generations stayed in one house. For the Chinese, it could well probably in one of those 四合院 (Shiheyuan) old style houses. The idea of leaving something to the next generation is so ingrained and therefore, so seductive that people ignore the facts of the modern property market.
For my great great great great grandchildren and their great great...
The truth is that with rapid advances in construction technology as well as the rapid urbanisation of Singapore, population density is going to keep going up. Our urban landscape constantly undergoes evolution and change. Buildings keep getting torn down by developers seeking to utilise cutting edge technology and
This piece was inspired by yet another comment that I received recently. “Don’t talk to me unless it is freehold.” Is it really true that Freehold always trumps leasehold? In an ideal world, as ANZ bank is prone to say nowadays, Freehold properties in the same location as leasehold properties would sell for similar prices. However, that is not true, Freehold is always more expensive, and people tend to forget the real cost of buying Freehold vs Leasehold. For the same amount of money that you could buy a Freehold property, you could probably buy a leasehold property in a much better location. When we consider the eternal truth that for property, location is everything, we wonder why some of us have chosen to believe that “Freehold is everything”. To carry an illustration to the extreme, a freehold property in the middle of the Australian outback desert is not going to have as much property gain as a 99 year leasehold property in Singapore. If you consider some properties that have made the most capital gains over the last few years, such as The Sail @ Marina Bay, you could not help but notice that Freehold does not have the final word in property transactions.
So why does Freehold still hold such a special place in our psyche. For Asians, it probably went way back to when generations stayed in one house. For the Chinese, it could well probably in one of those 四合院 (Shiheyuan) old style houses. The idea of leaving something to the next generation is so ingrained and therefore, so seductive that people ignore the facts of the modern property market.
For my great great great great grandchildren and their great great...
The truth is that with rapid advances in construction technology as well as the rapid urbanisation of Singapore, population density is going to keep going up. Our urban landscape constantly undergoes evolution and change. Buildings keep getting torn down by developers seeking to utilise cutting edge technology and