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What is the typical term length on mortgages there? If someone needs to refi when there are too few years on the lease than the person can come up with in princ

• wahern 8y ago
  That's a great point. I don't know enough to answer, though. Here's a short, interesting article a quick Google search found: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/understanding-what-happens-at-the-end-of-a-99-year-lease https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/understanding... What caught my eye was "And when the flat reaches 69 years, CPF savings cannot be used to finance the mortgages." CPF is the mandatory savings program, sort of like Social Security and Medicare, except you can borrow against it. So basically if there's only 30 years left on a leasehold you can't borrow against your CPF account. My guess is that as the leasehold nears expiry your ability to securitize simply goes down to nothing, probably long before termination. And even before then you probably start paying a premium because if you default the bank is stuck with a rapidly depreciating asset. From what little I've gleaned from my travels and from the academic literature, I think Americans enjoy an exceptionally liquid property market and efficient financing market, particularly for residential property.