No one wants to buy these HDB flats

Mar 11, 2018

Rachel Au-Yong
Housing Correspondent


For sale: A rare 150 sq m executive apartment in a peaceful neighbourhood, surrounded by amenities like hawker centres and minimarts, and only a two-minute walk from Queenstown MRT station.

At $798,000, the 22-year-old unit seems like a good deal, as HDB flats of a similar size in the vicinity were sold at between $860,000 and $1.16 million in the last year.

But the unit at Block 149, Mei Ling Street, has remained unsold for about five years after it was taken back by the Housing Board, said residents of nearby units.

Nearly a hundred of such flats, either repossessed by the HDB or unsold after being built, have been waiting for months or even years for someone to buy them.

HDB's Sale of Balance Flats and even Re-offer of Balance Flats exercises have come and gone but the 94 flats, in towns like Geylang, Tampines and Sembawang, have not caught the fancy of anyone.

They were left over from last August's inaugural re-offer exercise, which pools together unsold balance flats and repossessed flats. Most of the 1,394 flats on offer were snapped up, except for the 94 units, which make up 7 per cent of the total.

While it is hard to say whether this is a large figure, property analysts say this shows that Singaporeans can afford to be picky.

With about 150,000 new HDB flats launched in the last seven years, much of the demand for new homes has been met, said International Property Advisor chief executive Ku Swee Yong.

For instance, there were just two applicants per unit offered at the latest Build-To-Order flat exercise last month, compared with at least 10 per unit previously.

The unsold units tend to be on the lower floors or are reserved for buyers of minority races under HDB's ethnic integration policy. Only five of the 94 flats are open to all races.

Some units go as high as the 13th floor, but were not chosen out of concerns that a future high-rise building may block the view, while units at other blocks were deemed too far from the MRT, said flat buyers interviewed.

But the flat at Block 149, Mei Ling Street, stands out as the only executive apartment still left on the shelf.

On closer look, its unattractive traits emerge - it sits above a bin centre and its other set of windows faces a loading bay, which neighbours say can be noisy. And despite its third-floor unit number, it is on the second floor.

A 72-year-old retiree, who wanted to be known only as Mr Khoo, said: "It's such a sin for it to be left empty, but the price can't go too low or it will affect the resale value of the rest of the flats here."

Mr Ku, while noting that flats from the HDB are cheaper than those on the resale market, suggested bigger discounts for perennially unsold flats.

The 94 units were rolled over to last month's Re-offer of Balance Flats exercise. Flat selection for the 717 units on offer is ongoing.

In response, the HDB said it considers factors like location, floor area and prevailing market conditions at the time of sale. As such, prices of these re-offered flats may not be the same as that offered earlier, and may be adjusted when re-offered in future. But for the latest re-offer exercise, prices for the unsold flats were not reduced.

Some say it is a matter of time before someone falls in love with these "unwanted" flats.

Technical service manager Senthil Sethunarayanam, 30, knows his second-floor Telok Blangah ParcView unit is "less than ideal", given its proximity to the bin centre. But he was drawn by the partial view of the Keppel Golf Course from the master bedroom, and was also keen to return to the neighbourhood he grew up in.

"There are several downsides, but they are worth it to live in what I find to be one of the best neighbourhoods in Singapore," he said.