estimateFollowing the announcement by Minister for National Development Desmond Lee, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) will be launching more than 25,000 new flats in 2025. This is in line with the joint press release by HDB and the Ministry of National Development (MND) on Jan 16. These new flats are expected to meet the growing housing demand in Singapore and will include a mix of standard, plus, and prime Build-To-Order (BTO) flats under the new classification framework.As per the joint press release, the new flats will be launched through three sales exercises for approximately 19,600 BTO units and one Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise for over 5,500 units. The BTO units will be launched in the February sales launch at popular districts including Kallang/Whampoa, Queenstown, Woodlands, and Yishun. The new flats will offer first-time homebuyers a range of options to choose from, including completed units and units that are currently under construction with expected completion dates set between 2025 and 2028.In total, more than 10,000 new flats will be made available in the February BTO and SBF exercises. Over the last four years, from 2021 to 2024, HDB has launched a total of about 82,700 BTO flats. With the planned pipeline of 19,600 BTO flats in 2025, HDB is set to exceed its commitment of launching 100,000 units over a span of five years.AdvertisementCMOREClosing in on a record price: 5-room DBSS unit at Parc Lumiere on the market for $1.25 millionWith the accelerated ramp-up in BTO supply, the application rates have dropped significantly. In 2024, the average application rate among first-time homebuyers for BTO flats across all flat types was 2.1, a drop from the pre-pandemic rate of 3.7 in 2019. Among the three-room and larger flats, the average first-timer application rate in 2024 was 2.2 as compared to 4.0 in 2019.Minister Lee has stated that HDB will continue to release a steady stream of new flats to meet the housing demand in the coming years. The pipeline is set to bring the total number of flats launched between 2025 and 2027 to over 50,000, making the total number of new flats available to about 130,000 from 2021 to 2027.Speaking on the topic of Shorter Waiting Time (SWT) flats, Minister Lee estimated that about 3,800 of the 19,600 new flats, or one-fifth of the BTO flats planned for launch in 2025, will have a waiting time of less than three years. This is a significant increase from the 2,876 SWT flats offered in 2024 and also exceeds the annual supply of 2,000 to 3,000 SWT flats that was initially committed.“The introduction of more SWT flats will provide homebuyers with more options and may also divert some demand from the resale market,” commented Lee Sze Teck, senior director of data analytics at Huttons Asia.Read also: ANALYSIS: HDB towns with the highest price growth In 2025, approximately 7,000 HDB flats are expected to reach the minimum occupation period (MOP) of five years, which is the lowest supply of resale flats since 2015. With the assurance from HDB that they will be launching more BTO and SBF flats to meet the demand, this will provide homebuyers with more choices and help to stabilize the resale market. In addition, this higher supply of flats and SWT flats will also address the shortage of flats that have reached the MOP stage.Leading property agency Huttons expects the number of resale flat transactions in 2025 to range between 26,000 and 28,000, which would be slightly lower than the 28,876 transactions recorded in 2024. They also anticipate a slower growth in resale flat prices this year, estimated to be between 5% to 8%, as compared to the 9.6% increase reported in HDB’s flash estimate for 2024.
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