By Chuin Ting Weber, CFP, CFA, CAIA 
CEO & Chief Investment Officer, MoneyOwl

“Age Well” from PM’s 2025 National Day Rally speech affirms that Singapore’s policy direction for elderly living is “aging-in-place”.

Aging-in-place makes sense for both individuals and for Singapore.

❤️ It gives emotional security through the familiarity of one’s own home and community.

💡 It’s realistic at a systems level. Singapore cannot possibly build enough community care or small flexi-lease flats to house all retirees, even if everyone wanted to downsize.

But there’s an important implication:

If we’re depending on our home to fund our retirement, aging-in-place means we must be prepared to consider HDB’s Lease Buyback Scheme to release a sum of cash.

Community leaders would need to be prepared for an increased requirement for such home monetisation, because while about 70% of recent cohorts of active 55-year old CPF members can meet the Full Retirement Sum (FRS) if the value of their property is counted, it is a much lower 40% for attainment of FRS in cash balances and if all members (both active and inactive) are counted.

For those who still have some time and don’t like the idea of monetising your home, consider building up CPF savings to attain at least the FRS purely in cash balances, i.e., without depending on the property pledge.

CPF is a great compounding machine for the everyday person, especially in its Special Account and Retirement Account with high interest rates of 4% p.a. or more at Singapore Government’s AAA risk.

🏡 Aging well involves funding all 3 Must-Haves in retirement well:
1️⃣ Our home
2️⃣ Good medical & elderly care – through MediShield Life, CareShield Life and their commercial variants
3️⃣ Daily expenses – through a good Retirement Sum in cash that provides a lifelong cash income using the CPF LIFE annuity as a base

Balancing all three and not over-indexing on property or insurance, is the key to retirement security.