HDB launches 6,952 BTO flats for sale

SINGAPORE – The Housing Board launched 6,952 Build-To-Order (BTO) flats for sale on June 17, including about 2,000 flats in Sembawang North with shorter waits of under three years.

In all, seven BTO projects are on sale across Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Bukit Merah, Woodlands and Sembawang.

There are two Prime BTO projects in this launch – Berlayar Rise in Bukit Merah and Lakeview Cascadia in Bishan. The subsidy clawback has been set at 14 per cent for the Bukit Merah project and 10 per cent for the Bishan one, which is located in Upper Thomson.

Two Plus projects, Kebun Baru Breeze and Kebun Baru Ridge in Ang Mo Kio, have subsidy recovery rates of 8 per cent.

Prime and Plus flats, which are closer to the city centre, transport nodes and amenities, come with stricter resale conditions, such as a 10-year minimum occupation period (MOP) and a subsidy clawback upon resale.

The clawback means that when such flats are sold, owners will have to pay the Housing Board a percentage of the resale or valuation price, whichever is higher.

The remaining three projects – Sembawang Brook, Sembawang Portico and Woodgrove Acres in Woodlands – fall under the Standard classification. These flats do not have a subsidy recovery clause when they are sold, and they come with a five-year MOP.

The Woodgrove Acres in Woodlands.

PHOTO: HDB

Prime project Berlayar Rise will have a bumper crop of 1,976 flats.

Located along Telok Blangah Road, next to Telok Blangah MRT station, it comprises two-room flexi, three- and four-room flats.

Buyers will have to wait between four years and four and a half years for these flats.

Prices (without grants) range from $247,000 to $406,000 for a two-room flexi flat, $435,000 to $591,000 for a three-room unit, and $592,000 to $810,000 for a four-room flat.

For comparison, three-room resale flats in Bukit Merah recently transacted at between $740,000 and $771,000, and four-room resale flats at between $938,888 and $1.068 million, said HDB.

The other Prime project, Lakeview Cascadia, has 1,221 units of two-room flexi and four-room flats. These will be the first public housing units launched for sale in the Lakeview area near MacRitchie Reservoir in over 40 years.

The wait for a unit at Lakeview Cascadia is four years and three months.

PHOTO: HDB

The plot is in Upper Thomson Road and next to Lakeview Estate, and is a five-minute walk from Marymount MRT station. Two of its blocks will have about 50 public rental flats.

The wait for a unit there is four years and three months.

The two Plus projects in Ang Mo Kio will offer a combined 1,064 units.

The smaller project, Kebun Baru Ridge, will have a wait of three years and one month. The development, which is across the road from CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School, comprises 485 units of three- and four-room flats.

Kebun Baru Breeze, located along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, will have 579 two-room flexi and four-room flats. It is near Mayflower Secondary School and Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park.

The wait for a flat is four years and four months.

Plus project Kebun Baru Breeze has a subsidy recovery rate of 8 per cent.

PHOTO: HDB

Both projects are about a 10- to 15-minute walk from Mayflower MRT station.

In Sembawang, the two Standard projects with shorter waits will offer a combined 2,035 units along Sembawang Drive and Sungei Sembawang.

Sembawang Portico in Admiralty Lane and Sembawang Drive will have a wait of two years and seven months – the shortest in the upcoming launch.

It will have 875 units of two-room flexi, as well as three-, four- and five-room flats.

Sembawang Portico will have a wait of two years and seven months – the shortest in the upcoming launch.

PHOTO: HDB

The other project, Sembawang Brook, has a wait of two years and nine months. It is located across the road from Sembawang Portico, and will have 1,160 units of two-room flexi; three-, four- and five-room; and three-generation flats.

Prices (without grants) across the two projects range from $139,000 to $225,000 for a two-room flexi flat, $250,000 to $344,000 for a three-room flat, $302,000 to $437,000 for a four-room flat, and $420,000 to $579,000 for a five-room flat. Three-generation flats in Sembawang Brook cost between $468,000 and $567,000.

National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat said in a Facebook post on June 17 that more than one-third of the flats in this exercise have wait times of around three years or less, to cater to homebuyers who wish to get their flats sooner.

From this sales exercise, more flats will also be set aside for eligible first- and second-timer families with three or more children, he added.

The allocation quota under the Third Child Priority Scheme will be increased from up to 5 per cent to up to 10 per cent of flats offered in BTO and Sale of Balance Flats exercises.

The eligibility criteria has also been relaxed to include families expecting their third child.

Chee said to meet the needs of singles and seniors, nearly one in three units, or about 2,300 of the flats on offer, are two-room flexi units.

These flats form part of the 20,000 two-room flexi flats to be launched from 2026 to 2028, HDB said in a separate statement.

HDB said applicants who wish to improve their chances of securing a flat are encouraged to apply for projects with lower application rates, such as a rate of one or below.

Applications for the flats will close at 11.59pm on June 24 on the HDB Flat Portal.

In the next BTO exercise in October, HDB will offer about 7,960 flats in Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh and Yishun.