Prime apartments in Crawford and Plus apartments in Bayshore, Ang Mo Kio, Kallang are part of the 8,573-unit BTO that will be launched in October

Rental apartments will be included into the Bayshore Palms and Bayshore Vista complexes.

October 9, 2024

CONDOsingapore.com



In one of its biggest Build-To-Order (BTO) launches to date, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) will offer 8,573 apartments across 15 projects next week under its new flat categorisation structure.

According to HDB's announcement on Wednesday, October 9, new apartments will be available in nine estates: Ang Mo Kio, Bedok, Bukit Batok, Jurong West, Geylang, Kallang/Whampoa, Pasir Ris, Sengkang, and Woodlands. They will be categorised as Standard, Plus, or Prime depending on their location.

Over 40% of the new HDB supply for 2024 will come from the October batch.

One Prime project, with 312 apartments at Crawford Heights in the Kallang/Whampoa neighbourhood, will be launched next week.

In seven Plus developments in Kallang/Whampoa, Ang Mo Kio, Bedok (Bayshore and Kembangan), and Geylang, 3,273 apartments will be available. Among them, rental apartments will be included into the Bayshore Vista and Bayshore Palms Bedok complexes.

There will be about 4,988 standard apartments available in seven projects: Bukit Batok, Jurong West, Pasir Ris, Sengkang, and Woodlands.

More subsidies will be given to Prime and Plus apartments, whose higher costs correspond to their better locations. However, HDB said that in order to keep them inexpensive, both at the time of original sale and at a later resale, they would also be subject to tight resale and rental kerbs, along with greater subsidy clawbacks.

"These restrictions limit speculative gains, or the 'lottery effect,' by reinforcing owner-occupation in public housing and lowering the investment value of a BTO flat," said Minister for National Development Desmond Lee on Wednesday.

As part of HDB's "MyNiceHome" varsity lecture series, the minister was speaking to students during a roadshow at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

According to Lee, "the HDB resale market was soft for more than six years prior to the Covid-19 pandemic." However, during the last three years, resale prices have gone risen as a result of a supply shortage brought on by development delays and widespread demand.

After increasing by 5% in 2020, HDB resale prices increased by 12.7% in 2021. Prior to slowing to 4.9 percent rise in 2023, prices increased by an additional 10.4 percent in 2022.

He noted that when more million-dollar apartment purchases emerged, "market psychology was at play." In August, the government tightened HDB loan restrictions in an effort to stem the recent surge in HDB resale prices.

Lee pointed out that after many rounds of cooling measures, the private real estate market has begun to stabilise. In the third quarter, the private residential property price index had its worst loss since 2016, down 1.1%.

"Over time, we anticipate that the falling prices of private residential real estate will have a stabilising effect on the HDB resale market," the minister said.

According to Lee, the government has had to modify its housing policies in recent years to address a number of issues, including maintaining HDB apartments' affordability in the face of the sharp increase in resale values, guaranteeing a consistent supply of new apartments for first-time homebuyers, and opening up new, desirable areas for public housing.

According to Lee, there was "a dilemma" when new public housing was built in desirable areas.

Newly constructed apartments in prime areas, such the Greater Southern Waterfront or the city core, "naturally command higher market values." This implies that many families would still be unable to afford apartments in these locations, even after HDB offers "significant discounts" on BTO units.

The social cohesiveness that we have laboriously cultivated over many decades may be undermined by the gentrification of our HDB areas, the minister warned.

Access to apartments in desirable areas will be enhanced by lower BTO price for these apartments. "However, if no restrictions are placed, owners of Plus and Prime apartments will be able to 'cash out' on the additional subsidies and receive a windfall when they sell their apartments on the resale market, provided that there are no conditions to balance out these additional subsidies," he said.

"Those who were not able to purchase these apartments would be treated unfairly, and the lottery effect would be exacerbated."

According to him, it is likewise undesirable to forego the construction of HDB apartments in these desirable locations in favour of the private sector.

The present approach, which divides new apartments into mature and non-mature estates depending on town, has been replaced by the new framework.

According to HDB, there will be projects in the same town that fall into multiple categories because of their unique characteristics.

Furthermore, Prime apartments won't just be found in the downtown region and the nearby towns, such Bukit Merah, Queenstown, and Kallang/Whampoa. Prime apartments may be found in some developments along the Greater Southern Waterfront or at Bukit Timah Turf City.

For instance, three projects in Kallang/Whampoa town will be introduced during the October BTO exercise—"a bumper crop," according to Lee.

Kallang View and Towner Breeze are the two projects that will be categorised as Plus. With excellent transit choices and well-developed facilities, both will be easily accessible from the city core.

Crawford Heights, the third project, is "one notch above," according to Lee. In addition to being close to Kallang Riverside Park and the upcoming Kallang Alive complex, which will feature a new 18,000-seat indoor stadium, it will be five minutes' walk from Lavender MRT station.

When the apartments go on sale next week, specifics about the cost and rates of subsidy recovery will be revealed.

S$387,000 for a three-room apartment in Jurong West, S$975,000 for a five-room apartment in Kallang/Whampoa, and S$988,000 for a five-room apartment in Ang Mo Kio in September are the current median sales prices in the areas where the first Prime, Plus, and Standard apartments will be introduced.

Singles will have more alternatives in the HDB market thanks to the October BTO exercise. New two-room flexi apartments in the Standard, Plus, and Prime categories are available to qualified singles in every location. Singles were formerly restricted to constructions in immature estates.

Additionally, HDB plans to introduce 2,085 BTO apartments with a waiting period of less than three years. These will be available in three Sengkang and Bukit Batok developments.