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HDB BTO: New flats to be offered in Bedok and Serangoon in May exercise
Bukit Merah and Queenstown to feature in August BTO exercise, said HDB.
SINGAPORE – There will be some 5,400 Build-to-Order (BTO) flats offered in the upcoming May 2023 BTO exercise and these will be in Tengah, Bedok, Kallang Whampoa and Serangoon.
The mature estates of Bedok and Serangoon in particular will get Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats for the first time in some seven and nine years respectively.
The HDB gave the numbers in a statement on Tuesday (28 February), where it added that there will be between 5,200 and 6,200 flats in the August exercise. These will be in Choa Chu Kang, Tengah, Bukit Merah, Kallang Whampoa and Queenstown.
HDB also said that it will continue to monitor the housing demand closely and that it is "prepared to launch up to a total of 100,000 flats from 2021 to 2025".
On Tuesday, the HDB launched its first BTO exercise of the year, with 4,428 flats put up for sale across five projects in four locations with a mix of mature and non-mature estates, namely Kallang Whampoa, Queenstown, Jurong West and Tengah.
Also read: February 2023 BTO: HDB launches over 4,400 flats in four locations including Tengah
Also read: Budget 2023: First-timers to receive additional BTO ballot, more housing grants
Also read: Singapore’s HDB featured in Malaysian parliament debate
Mortgage Servicing Ratio
The HDB said that it is "committed to keeping BTO flats affordable", and noted that in 2022, almost nine in 10 BTO flat buyers who collected keys to their new flats have Mortgage Servicing Ratios (MSRs) of less than 25 per cent.
"This means that these flat buyers use less than a quarter of their total household income to pay for their mortgage and can service their HDB loans completely using their monthly CPF contributions, with little or no cash outlay," said HDB. Those in the lower-income group will have even lower mortgage servicing figures as they receive higher grants, it added.
Chances good for first-time applicants
According to HDB, the vast majority of BTO flats in non-mature estates are set aside for first-timers.
"With additional ballot chances, first-timer applicants who apply for a BTO flat in the non-mature estates enjoy a higher chance of success in securing a flat. Virtually all first-timer households who applied for a flat in non-mature estates have been invited to book their flat within three tries, and 90 per cent of them were in fact successful within two tries," said HDB.
HDB further revealed that of all the BTO projects launched in 2021 and 2022, "about 40 per cent of the projects with 3-room or bigger flats had one or more flat types with first-timer application rates of 1.7 and lower".
"With a BTO rejection rate of about 40 per cent, applicants of these flats stand a good chance of selecting their flats. To increase their chances of securing their new BTO flats, flat applicants can look out for projects with application rates of around 1.7 and lower," said HDB.
More information on the application rates of each BTO project can be found on the HDB Flat Portal. The website will be updated several times a day over the course of the seven-day application window that begins on Tuesday and ends on Monday (6 March).
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