Toa Payoh shophouses ask $40 million on a 44-year lease

A ground-floor shop unit and a two-storey HDB shophouse in Toa Payoh Central have been put up for sale at a combined $40 million guide price. The seller is a charity, the leases have 44 to 45 years left, and the asking rate works out to about $5,417 psf. Each of those three facts changes how you should read this deal.

The seller is the Lew Foundation, a Singapore charity, and the sale runs as an expression of interest through Cushman & Wakefield, the sole marketing agent, closing 28 September 2026. The two properties are offered together, with no individual pricing disclosed. The foundation’s executive director, Yeo Puay Hin, said the sale is part of reducing the organisation’s concentration in commercial real estate, with proceeds going to its programmes for vulnerable seniors and youth.

The larger asset is a ground-floor commercial unit at Block 190 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh, with about 6,039 sq ft of floor area and a 22-metre frontage onto the pedestrian spine between HDB Hub and Toa Payoh Central. It is leased to food-and-beverage and beauty tenants and has 45 years left on its lease. The second is a 1,345 sq ft two-storey HDB shophouse at Block 178 Toa Payoh Central, with a medical clinic on the ground floor, living quarters above, and 44 years remaining.

Why a 44-year lease can still ask $5,417 psf

Privately held HDB shop units are a closed pool. HDB stopped selling them to private owners in 1998, and roughly 8,500 remain in private hands, a number that only shrinks as leases run down. Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets team pointed out that large ground-floor units approved for food and beverage rarely surface in a location like Toa Payoh Central, and that F&B approval widens the pool of future tenants.

The buyer profile is wider than for residential property too. The Block 190 unit is fully commercial, so the purchase attracts no additional buyer’s stamp duty (ABSD) and no seller’s stamp duty, and foreigners and companies can buy it. Investors here are pricing rental income against a finite lease: the maths of a yield play, with footfall from one of Singapore’s busiest town centres doing the heavy lifting.

That is also why the asking rate can sit well above a recent comparable. A separate single shophouse at the same Block 178 was listed last month at a $5.5 million guide, about $4,089 psf. This portfolio asks about a third more per square foot, and the difference is largely the Block 190 unit’s size, frontage and F&B approval.

Guide prices of recent HDB shop offerings. The portfolios differ in unit count, so compare with care: this pair asks $40 million for two units. Source: guide prices per marketing agents (Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE). Chart: HomeAsset.

The third seller in four months

This listing extends a clear pattern. A CBRE-run EOI for four HDB shophouse units in Bras Basah and Lavender opened earlier in August at a $13.4 million guide, which we covered two weeks ago, and a row in Telok Blangah came to market in June. Owners of these units, many of whom have held them for decades, are testing what the market will pay while interest in the asset class is high.

Toa Payoh Central adds its own story. The area around the units is slated for the Toa Payoh Integrated Development, a stadium, sports hall, polyclinic and library complex expected around 2030, which should thicken footfall further. A buyer underwriting this deal is betting that the town centre stays busy for the remaining four and a half decades of lease, and that rents rise enough along the way to justify the entry price.

What this means for you

• This is a commercial deal, not a home purchase. No ABSD applies, companies and foreigners can bid, and the return is rental yield against a lease that ends in the early 2070s. Judge it as an income stream, never as a store of value to pass on.
• The lease is the discipline. At 44 to 45 years, financing terms tighten and every year of holding shaves the runway. If you are eyeing smaller HDB shop units as an entry into commercial property, model the exit at year 15 or 20, when the next buyer faces a sub-30-year lease.
• For ordinary Toa Payoh residents and flat owners, the takeaway is indirect but real: institutional-scale money keeps paying up for town-centre footfall here, and the 2030 integrated development is part of that calculus. Busy town centres support flat values; they do not require you to own a shop to benefit.