Simon says: Here’s why I bought a 99-year terrace house

HOME for Simon Ang’s family of seven, spanning three generations, is a three-storey terrace house along Jalan Rindu near Bartley MRT station. He and his wife, Josephine, paid S$1.82 million for the property in August 2017, with close to 75 years left on the property’s 99-year lease.

Rather than spring a fortune for a freehold property, the couple decided they could overcome the “stigma” relating to lease decay for 99-year landed properties.

“We would have loved to have a freehold home, but my immediate concerns were more about affordability and size. We needed a lot of bedrooms,” Ang said. “For the same budget, we could have bought a freehold house with a much smaller land size – maybe 1,600 square feet (sq ft) – but that would not have catered to our space requirements.”