An HDB terrace with 41 years left just sold for $1.04 million

A 3-room terrace flat at Block 50 Stirling Road changed hands for $1,040,888 in August 2026, the first HDB terrace on the street to cross $1 million. It has about 41 years left on its lease, the kind of number that usually sinks a resale price rather than sets one.

The sale, and what it beat

HDB’s resale records show the two-storey house spans 102 sqm, about 1,102 sq ft, so the price works out to roughly $944 per square foot. The lease had 40 years and 11 months to run when the sale was registered.

No HDB terrace on Stirling Road had come close to this in the official records, which go back to 2017. The previous high for the street was $998,000, paid in May 2025 for a larger 4-room terrace at Block 42. The previous high for a 3-room terrace was $930,000 at Block 56 in November 2022, which works out to about $800 per square foot. The new sale beats that on price per square foot by 18% in under four years.

The five highest HDB terrace resales on Stirling Road since 2017. The street had never crossed $1 million before August. Source: HDB resale transaction data via data.gov.sg.

Eight houses, three sales in six years

Block 50 holds just eight units, per HDB’s property records. Since 2017 it has recorded three resales in total. A near-identical 102 sqm unit in the block sold for $855,000 in November 2020, and a 105 sqm unit went for $920,000 in July 2021. Against the 2020 sale, the new price is 22% higher even though close to six years of lease have burned off in between.

Every resale in Block 50 Stirling Road since 2017. The 2020 and 2026 units are almost the same size. Source: HDB resale transaction data via data.gov.sg.

For scale: across the 12 months to August 2026, Queenstown’s median 3-room resale price is $450,000 over 324 transactions. This flat cost 2.3 times the town median for its own flat type. Nobody paid that for the flat classification. They paid it for the land underneath.

What the buyer actually bought

The Stirling Road terraces were built by the Singapore Improvement Trust, HDB’s predecessor, between 1959 and 1961, and Block 50 itself was completed in 1959, making these some of the oldest public homes still standing. The National Heritage Board counts only 285 landed public housing units in the whole country, split between this estate and the Jalan Bahagia and Jalan Ma’mor enclave in Whampoa. On Stirling Road, 86 terrace units remain across 13 low blocks, a few minutes’ walk from Queenstown MRT station, with front gardens and, in Block 50’s case, room for porch extensions.

Whampoa still holds the bigger numbers. A 174 sqm terrace at Jalan Ma’mor fetched $1.4 million in August 2025, a 367 sqm unit there went for $1.57 million in July 2024, and a 93 sqm Jalan Bahagia terrace crossed $1.1 million in June 2026. So the Stirling Road sale is a street record and a Queenstown record, not a national one. What it confirms is that both landed HDB pockets now clear $1 million routinely.

The lease clock has not stopped

None of this suspends the usual maths. At 41 years remaining, CPF usage starts to get pro-rated for buyers whose age plus the remaining lease falls short of 95, and banks shorten loan tenures against short-lease properties. Buyers of these houses typically need more cash upfront than the price alone suggests, and the lease still runs to zero in the late 2060s unless the state steps in with a scheme nobody should plan around.

The market here is also thin enough that one determined buyer sets the price. Three sales in one block across nine years cannot tell you where the next one lands. Eight families hold something rare, and every few years one of them meets the person who wants it most.

What this means for you

• Owners of the other 85 Stirling Road terraces, and the Whampoa rows, now have a fresh anchor at $944 psf. Thin markets cut both ways though: the next sale depends on the next rare buyer showing up, and that can take years.
• Tempted by a landed HDB as a lifestyle buy? Price the financing before the charm. Check how the remaining lease interacts with your age for CPF usage, ask lenders what tenure they will actually offer, and budget a larger cash component.
• Do not read this as proof that lease decay no longer matters. Ordinary 3-room flats in the same town still trade around a $450,000 median. Scarcity did the work here, and only 285 homes in Singapore sit in that category.