February 2025 BTO Exercise Results: Sales of Balance Flats Exercise Diverts Demand from BTO

SINGAPORE, 17 February 2025 – HDB’s February 2025 (Build-to-Order) BTO exercise, coupled with the annual Sale of Balance (SBF) exercise concludes today. In total, 10,622 HDB homes were available for application island wide.

We saw a moderate 1.0 median first-timer application rate for 3-room and larger flat types across all the BTO projects, with a further 4.8 median first-timer application rate for 2-room flexi BTO flats.

As of 5pm on 17 Feb 2025, publicly available HDB data shows that there were 8,402 applicants for the 3,621 units (3-room and bigger BTO units) across four residential towns – Queenstown, Kallang-Whampoa, Yishun, and Woodlands. The 2-room Flexi units saw 4,029 applicants for 1,411 units.

“We observed a lower median application rate for Feb 2025 BTO projects compared to the June and October 2024 launches. The concurrent SBF exercise, which offered 5,590 flats with shorter wait times and a wider range of locations, have diverted demand away from the BTO exercise.” said Eugene Lim, KEO, ERA Singapore.

Under the SBF exercise, flats in mature estates that were launched prior to October 2024, will adhere to the standard HDB resale restrictions such as 5-year MOP instead of the 10-year MOP under Plus or Prime categories. This makes them appealing to buyers who do not want to be restricted by the longer MOP.

Under the BTO sales launch, the 2-room Flexi flats saw 4,029 applicants for 1,411 units. This is due to the concurrent SBF exercise offering 1,348 2-room Flexi flats, which drew in a staggering 7,602 applicants and helped ease pressure on the BTO launch.

“Tanjong Rhu Parc Front’s 3- and 4-room flats respectively saw first-timer family application rates of 1.0 and 3.5. This surpasses the corresponding rates recorded for June 2024’s Tanjong Rhu BTO project (Tanjong Rhu Riverfront I and II), which were 0.9 for 3-room flats and 2.1 for 4-room flats.

The strong interest in Tanjong Rhu Parc Front is due to its marginally closer location to Tanjong Katong MRT station compared to June 2024’s projects, as well as the Kallang Alive Master Plan announcement in August.”

“Stirling Horizon, a Plus project located in Queenstown, was less popular compared to other BTO sales launched in Queenstown. In particular, 4-room flats saw moderately slower interest from first-timer families, with an application rate of 1.7.

Besides being a Plus project that saw more stringent resale requirements, Stirling Horizon is relatively far away from the nearest Queenstown MRT station and has a longer wait time of 55-month.”

“The two Standard projects under Yishun township, Chencharu Vines and Chencharu Green saw application rates of 1.3 for 3-room flats, 1.0 for 4-room flats, and 1.3 for 5-room flats respectively.

While both Chencharu projects saw shorter wait time of between 37 and 38 months, buyers may be concerned that there will be a shortage of amenities in the still-developing Chencharu area when they are ready to move it. This may have held back interest in both projects. Some homebuyers may opt for resale flats instead, drawn by their location with more amenities, and the reasonable price gap between BTO and resale options.”

“Overall, application rates for Woodlands North Verge fell short of expectations, seeing a 0.9 application rate across 3-room, 4-room, and 5-room flats. This can be in large part due to the lack of amenities surrounding Woodlands North now.

While the project would feature access to the nearby Woodlands North MRT station across the Thomson-East Coast line, the surrounding area is largely undeveloped in terms of amenities and housing projects.”

“Overall, we also saw strong interest for the SBF for 3-room and bigger, with first-timer application rates upwards of 5.0 for popular housing towns such as Bishan, Serangoon, Pasir Ris, Queenstown, Sengkang, Hougang, Bedok, and Tampines.

HDB towns with few flats available such as Pasir Ris (11 units), Serangoon (8 units) and Hougang (70 units) all saw significantly high application rates.

For the SBF exercise, 2-room Flexi flats attracted 7,602 applications in total. Additionally, first-timer single applicants for 2-room Flexi flats in Bedok, Geylang, Hougang, and Tampines saw application rates exceeding 200.”

SBF flats have been popular as they offer a wider variety of projects as compared to those in the BTO exercises. SBF flats that saw high application rates were in towns not featured in this current BTO exercise, such as Clementi, Tampines, Pasir Ris, Sengkang, and Hougang.

“Majority of these SBF flats in mature estates, will follow the standard 5-year MOP, unless  they were previously launched under the Plus or Prime classifications, making them attractive to buyers which explains their high oversubscription rate. Furthermore, some of the SBF flats are already completed, with others offering shorter waiting times compared to BTO flats, they could meet the demands of homebuyers with urgent housing needs.”

As the sole SBF exercise of the year concludes, all demand will fall back onto the BTO market for the remaining two launches of the year. We should see increased application rates for the upcoming BTO projects this year, as they feature homes in sought-after locations like Bukit Merah and Toa Payoh.

Table 1: Number of Applications Received for 2-room Flexi BTO as at 5pm, 17 Feb 2025

Source: HDB

Table 2: Number of Applications Received for 3-room and bigger BTO flats as at 5pm, 17 Feb 2025

Source: HDB

For media enquiries, please contact:

Yue Kai Xin, Press Relations, ERA Singapore

Email: [email protected]