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Minister for National Development Desmond Lee and the Housing and Development Board (HDB) have announced plans to launch more than 25,000 new flats in 2025, according to a joint press release with the Ministry of National Development (MND) on January 16.
This includes approximately 19,600 build-to-order (BTO) flats across three sales exercises and over 5,500 sale of balance flats (SBF) in one SBF sale exercise. The units will be a mix of Standard, Plus, and Prime BTO flats under the new classification framework.
The February BTO launch will offer around 5,000 flats in Kallang/Whampoa, Queenstown, Woodlands, and Yishun.
Next month, HDB’s largest-ever Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise will also take place, with over 5,500 flats available in various estates. Approximately 40% of the flats in the SBF exercise are completed units, while the rest are at different stages of construction and will be ready between 2025 and 2028.
In total, there will be more than 10,000 new flats available under the February BTO and SBF exercises.
Since 2021, HDB has launched about 82,700 BTO flats in the last four years from 2021 to 2024. With a planned pipeline of 19,600 BTO flats in 2025, HDB is on track to launch more than 102,300 BTO flats, exceeding its commitment of 100,000 units over five years.
The increase in BTO supply has resulted in a drop in application rates. In 2024, the average application rate for first-time homebuyers for BTO flats across all types was 2.1, compared to 3.7 in 2019 before the pandemic. The average first-timer application rate for three-bedroom and larger flats last year was 2.2, down from 4.0 in 2019.
Minister Lee has stated that HDB will continue to release “a steady pipeline of flats to meet housing demand in the next few years.” Over 50,000 flats will be launched between 2025 and 2027, bringing the total to about 130,000 flats from 2021 to 2027.
Approximately 3,800 of the 19,600 new flats, or about one-fifth of the BTO flats slated for launch in 2025, will be Shorter Waiting Time (SWT) flats with a waiting time of less than three years. This is an increase from the 2,876 SWT flats offered in 2024 and more than the annual committed supply of 2,000 to 3,000 SWT flats.
“The SWT flats will also provide more options for buyers and may attract some demand away from the resale market,” says Lee Sze Teck, senior director of data analytics at Huttons Asia.
In 2025, Lee estimates that about 7,000 HDB flats will reach their five-year minimum occupation period (MOP), making it the lowest supply of resale flats since 2015. “With HDB assuring buyers that they will push out more BTO and SBF flats to meet demand, this will offer more choices for buyers and stabilize the resale market,” he says. “This larger flat supply and SWT flats will address the shortfall in MOP flats.”
Lee from Huttons estimates that HDB resale flat transactions in 2025 will range between 26,000 and 28,000, lower than the 28,876 units recorded last year. Resale flat prices are expected to grow at a slower pace of 5% to 8% this year compared to the 9.6% increase reported in HDB’s flash estimate for 2024.
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