You will be able to list the ways a home can provide income or cash in retirement.
For many Singaporeans in their fifties, the largest thing they own is the flat they live in. Jasmine's four-room HDB flat is fully paid, and she guesses it would sell for around S$600,000 in this example, more than half her savings. Yet her drawdown map treats it as worth nothing. It pays no income. It just sits there, costing conservancy charges and property tax.
That is the right starting assumption, because you need somewhere to live. But a home can also become income or cash in later life, in a few specific ways. This lesson goes through them, with what each gives and what each costs. Property & Mortgages: buy a home and manage the loan, lesson 8.4, Upgrading or right-sizing in the right order, covers the mechanics of selling and buying. Here the question is what your home can do for your retirement income.
Staying put is the most common choice, and often a sensible one. You keep your neighbourhood, your routines and your doctor. The home stays out of your income plan, but it remains a reserve: if your savings run low, care costs arrive or you simply want a smaller place, you can still act later.
The risk in staying is drift. Many people intend to right-size "at some point" and never do, until a fall or an illness forces a rushed sale on bad terms. If staying is your plan, write down the condition that would make you move: stairs you can no longer manage, a flat that is too big to clean, or savings that fall below a set level.
Selling a larger home and buying a smaller or cheaper one can release a lump of cash. The amount you actually get to spend is smaller than the gap in prices.
When you sell a flat bought with CPF savings, the sale proceeds first refund to your CPF accounts the CPF money you used, plus the interest it would have earned, which the CPF Board calls accrued interest. Agent fees, legal fees and stamp duty on the next purchase come off too. Only what is left is cash in your hand. Your CPF statement shows how much you used and the accrued interest to date. How much of the refund you can later withdraw depends on your age and CPF rules, so check it on cpf.gov.sg.
HDB has run schemes that reward older owners for moving to a smaller flat, such as the Silver Housing Bonus, with conditions on the type of flat you buy and on topping up your Retirement Account. Check what is available and whether you qualify on the HDB and CPF websites before you count on it.
Jasmine sketched one version. If she sold her four-room flat at 75 and bought a two-room flexi or a smaller resale flat, she estimates, with made-up figures, that she would have about S$250,000 in cash after costs and after the refund to her CPF accounts. That figure is a guess for planning, and lesson 6.4, Write your housing and care plan, tests what it does to her map.
HDB's Lease Buyback Scheme lets eligible older owners sell part of the remaining lease of their flat back to HDB while continuing to live in it. You keep a shorter lease, long enough to cover you, and HDB pays you for the years you give up.
Most of the proceeds go into your Retirement Account to raise your CPF LIFE payouts, which means the scheme turns part of your flat into a higher income floor for life. Any amount left over after the top-up may be paid in cash. There are conditions on age, household income, flat type and how much lease you keep, and the rules change from time to time. HDB's website explains the current conditions and has a way to estimate the proceeds for your own flat.
The trade-off is what you leave behind. A flat with a shorter lease is worth less to your heirs, and when the lease you keep runs out, the flat goes back to HDB. If you want to pass the flat to your children, this option works against that. If what matters most is a higher income for life without moving, it fits well.
Renting out a spare room adds income while you stay where you are. In HDB flats there are rules on who can rent a room, how many occupants are allowed and how the arrangement is registered with HDB, and owners usually need to have met the minimum occupation period. Rent is taxable income, and lesson 3.3, Time SRS withdrawals around your other income, explained why that can push SRS withdrawals into a higher band.
Room rental has costs that don't show in the rent: sharing your kitchen and bathroom, finding and managing tenants, and the empty months between them. Jasmine thinks she could get about S$900 a month at today's prices. She hasn't put it in her central plan, but it is the backup she wrote into her rules in module 4 and tested in lesson 5.4, Run your plan through three scenarios.
Each option trades something. Staying keeps your life and your options, and leaves the most to your heirs, but releases nothing. Right-sizing releases cash and lowers your running costs, at the cost of moving. Selling part of the lease raises your income for life without moving, but shortens what you can pass on. Renting a room keeps everything, at the cost of your privacy.
Jasmine's preference: stay until about 75, then right-size, keeping room rental as an emergency lever and the Lease Buyback Scheme as a later option if she can't face moving.
Look up the current conditions for each option on HDB's site and estimate roughly what each would give you before you decide which way you lean.
Write whether you plan to stay, right-size, sell part of the lease or rent a room, and the cash or income each would give.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).