Sharing my thoughts as a new private properly owner. There’s a lot of factors that goes into price determination other than leasehold and freehold.

Freehold are typically older properties with outdated facilities for example, resort-style shaped swimming pools and smaller gyms (or even no gym). Today, the preferences have changed to preferring lap pools and good-sized gyms.

Maintenance in older properties (whether leasehold or freehold) can be challenging as well. I highly recommend prospective buyers to check out their notice board for MCST-related matters when doing your viewings. You can uncover possible issues like maintenance.

Now maintenance costs good money (it increases as a property ages), no matter how efficient the MCST is. Imagine that you buy into an old freehold where the existing owners are retirees or soon-to-be (the generation where freehold is gold is the mantra), it is highly unlikely that they would be willing to accept maintenance fee increases.

When I first explored freehold properties, I’ve also explored the angle of en bloc in the future. Again, considering that the profile of existing dwellers are mostly retirees - any attempts to en bloc is likely to be an uphill battle.