Old condos at a crossroads: Rebuild, upgrade or conserve?

SINGAPORE – On Sept 9, Loyang Valley’s third collective sale attempt closed with expressions of interest,

but no firm bids

.

For Mr Jaya, who has lived there since day one, it means the 40-year-old estate may need to rethink maintenance fees if ongoing negotiations fall through.

The ageing swimming pool, landscaping, roofing and piping all need refurbishment, and with fees held flat for two years during the sale push, Mr Jaya told The Straits Times he expects an increase to be announced in the next annual general meeting.

The 78-year-old has no plans to sell his home in Changi, and is prepared to pay higher costs.

Loyang Valley’s experience reflects a broader reality as more private non-landed residential apartments built in the 1970s and 1980s cross the 40-year mark. Some of these developments are increasingly

struggling with deteriorating infrastructure

, insufficient sinking funds and resistance by owners to pay special levies to solve these problems.

In some estates, owners are split. One camp pushes for renewal via a sale en bloc and redevelopment, while others prefer to remain and fund refurbishment through higher fees and special levies.

But not every estate will see an offer en bloc. Analysts noted that developers have recently shown stronger interest in Government Land Sales (GLS) tenders, which can reduce appetite for complex private-treaty sites.

GLS plots are typically in locations with good infrastructure, such as being near MRT stations and amenities, said Mr Eugene Lim, key executive officer at ERA Singapore. He added that the open-tender process is also more straightforward and faster than a collective sale, which can be prolonged by objections filed with the Strata Titles Board.

Success rates for the sale en bloc of older estates remain low. In the past decade, fewer than 10 per cent of older condos have successfully been sold collectively, said Ms Winnie Wong, senior managing director of property management at Savills Singapore.

Collective sales often stall due to differing price expectations between buyers and sellers. Such sales require the consent of at least 80 per cent of owners by share value and strata floor area, a high bar for developers to overcome.

At Lakeview Estate, a 48-year-old leasehold development in Upper Thomson, a fifth attempt at a sale en bloc in eight years is under way. But the highest consensus achieved in the past four attempts was only 56 per cent of share value, said resident Nallan Chakravarti Raghava.

Residents of the former HUDC estate have flagged lifts due for replacement, spalling concrete and water seepage in the carpark. But not all are keen on a collective sale as the solution.

Mr Raghava, 73, who has lived at Lakeview since 1991, said: “If most people want to sell, I will go along. But I won’t push for it. I am happy living here as long as things are safe.”

He added: “If the collective sale goes through this time, I will use the proceeds to buy a cheaper and smaller flat in Punggol and save the rest. But I am also quite prepared to pay a special levy for the refurbishment of the estate should the sale en bloc fail.”

Where sales en bloc are not an option, some residents find living with ageing infrastructure a growing challenge.

The Straits Times reported recently that

one condominium in the east had seen frequent lift breakdowns

since 2021 and the management corporation took two years to get majority owners’ support to raise a special levy for a full lift overhaul.

Property experts said such cases reflect the difficulty of maintaining safety in older estates. Ageing is a building issue, not a tenure issue. Both freehold and leasehold estates face wear and obsolescence, and it becomes harder and more expensive to keep systems and structures safe, working well and meeting regulations.

Savills’ Ms Wong said more management corporation strata titles (MCSTs) are finding their sinking funds insufficient for major repairs, replacements and renewal. The scale of this issue will only increase over the next decade, she warned.

The Government has said it is reviewing the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act, to better enable MCSTs to upgrade their developments. 

Renewal or refurbishment?

Sustainability is a further consideration in deciding the fate of older condominiums. For example, demolition comes with a heavy carbon cost as the embodied carbon in concrete and steel is lost, while new materials need to be manufactured, transported and installed.

Architects noted that retaining and adapting buildings are possible in some cases, but many older estates built decades ago have lower floor-to-floor heights, smaller windows and outdated plumbing and wiring. Retrofitting them with fire safety upgrades or additional amenities and accessibility features is highly complex and costly.

The new condominiums generally draw buyers with “live, work and play” lifestyles, offering communal facilities, smart-home systems and nature-infused designs with flexible layouts. Refurbishment rarely matches the scale or holistic design of a new launch, said architect Lawrence Ler.

Mr David Liauw, a director at DP Architects, noted that Singapore is not alone in facing renewal dilemmas.

Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, an icon in the 1970s Metabolist design, was demolished in 2022 despite international conservation efforts, due to fragmented ownership and lack of funding, said Mr Liauw.

London’s Barbican Estate and Chicago’s Marina City, by contrast, were preserved with interior upgrades while retaining their iconic facades.

In Singapore, the conservation of condominiums is rare. “Efforts have largely focused on iconic shophouses, colonial-era black-and-white bungalows and select public housing blocks with historical value,” said Mr Liauw.

The debate over Pearl Bank Apartments showed how difficult this can be. Despite efforts to conserve it in 2015, it was ultimately

sold en bloc in 2018

in its fourth collective sale attempt and replaced with One Pearl Bank.

The owners-led conservation plan failed because the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) required 100 per cent unanimous consent. About 90 per cent of the owners had backed the plan to increase the gross floor area by building another block above the five-storey carpark and use the sale proceeds to retrofit the existing tower.

Golden Mile Complex, on the other hand, shows that conservation is possible when backed by planning incentives such as increasing gross floor area and integrating new towers, noted Mr Liauw. The conserved complex is

slated to be completed in 2029

. It will feature offices, medical suites and retail spaces, and have a new 45-storey residential tower connected to it via a link bridge.

Legal parameters also shape outcomes. Lawyer Daniel Chen of Lee & Lee pointed out that Singapore’s strata law is built on self-governance, that is, the majority decides on what to do for their development. This means that even in decline, if most residents prefer to hold on to the development, the law should not override them.

With more than 800 condominiums out of 2,703 developments already past 30 years old, the cracks are beginning to show.

The latest data from URA showed that from January to July 2025, the median price of newer, leasehold condos less than five years old was $2,479 per sq ft. This is 122 per cent higher than the $1,115 psf median price of older condos at least 40 years old.

Although demand for older, leasehold condos has ticked up, the resale volume remains relatively insignificant. URA data showed that in 2018, there were 101 leasehold condos 40 years old and above that were resold. The resale volume tripled in 2024 to 323 units.

For some developments, the hope of a collective sale offers financial relief and a way forward. For others, the preference is to stay put and invest in refurbishment if needed.

That is the crossroads older condos now face.