SINGAPORE: The Housing and Development Board (HDB) is significantly ramping up the supply of flats with shorter waiting times of under three years, with 12,000 of these units set to be launched from 2025 to 2027.

That's more than the total number of such flats launched over the past five years combined, Minister for National Development Desmond Lee said Wednesday (Mar 26) as he announced the initiative.

A scheme that helps young couples buy a home - the Deferred Income Assessment scheme - will also be expanded.

Speaking at the National University of Singapore (NUS) at a dialogue called MyNiceHome, Mr Lee said the government is on track to exceed its commitment to launch 100,000 Build-to-Order (BTO) flats from 2021 to 2025.

"This is the equivalent of two Ang Mo Kio towns' worth of HDB flats in less than five years, despite the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

The median waiting time for BTO flats has also been shortened to less than four years, comparable to pre-pandemic days.

At the peak of the pandemic, the waiting time for a BTO flat was around four to five years.

FLATS WITH SHORTER WAITING TIMES

It was previously announced that more than 50,000 BTO flats will be launched from 2025 to 2027. The 12,000 flats with shorter waiting times represent 24 per cent of the total figure over this period.

Over the years, HDB has been offering more flats with shorter waiting times.

In 2023, HDB launched 732 such flats at Sin Ming Residences in the Bishan area. In 2024, more than 2,800 flats with shorter waiting times were offered for sale in Bukit Batok, Sengkang and Woodlands.

Mr Lee said in January that 3,800 flats launched in 2025 will have shorter waiting times of under three years.

With efforts to ramp up the BTO supply and cut down waiting times, Mr Lee noted that application rates for first-timer families have come down and stabilised below pre-COVID levels - from 3.7 in 2019 to 1.5 in the February 2025 BTO exercise.

During his speech at NUS, Mr Lee said the government wants to better support more than just first-timer families.

"We are not quite ready to do so, but we acknowledge and understand the calls to lower the eligibility age for singles and the aspirations of other groups of Singaporeans. We will continue to work hard, and this is something that we will study and review carefully," he added.

Under the new classification framework of Standard, Plus and Prime flats, singles can now buy two-room Flexi flats islandwide to stay near their parents who live in what were formerly mature estates.

The new Family Care Scheme, which will be rolled out later this year, will also give eligible singles priority access when they apply for new flats to live with or near their parents, and vice versa.

MORE HELP FOR YOUNG COUPLES

The Deferred Income Assessment scheme will be expanded to cover young couples such that only one person needs to be a full-time student or National Serviceman to be eligible. This will kick in from the July 2025 sales exercise.

The scheme allows young couples to apply for a new flat first and defer their income assessment for housing grants or loans to just before they collect their keys. As grant and loan eligibility are usually dependent on household income, deferring this assessment could help couples qualify for a higher loan amount.

Currently, both parties must either be studying full-time or serving National Service (NS), or have completed their studies or NS within the last 12 months of applying for the HDB flat eligibility letter.

Mr Lee said he had received feedback from young Singaporeans that there are often situations where one person has started work after graduation, but the other may still be studying or serving NS.

"But because this is a single-income couple at the point in time when they want to book a flat early, they may not qualify for a large enough housing loan to afford the flat they are looking for and they may have difficulty paying the initial down payment," he said.

The expansion of the scheme will benefit a wider range of young couples, including those serving NS after graduating from polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education, besides university graduates.

MILLION-DOLLAR FLATS, "LOTTERY EFFECT"

Mr Lee also acknowledged anxieties around resale flats selling for more than a million dollars.

"I want to assure you that there is a wide range of affordable housing for different housing budgets, for both BTO flats, which are new flats built and sold and priced by HDB, and resale flats, which you buy from an existing owner in the open market," he said.

"One of the key ways to ensure affordability is by pricing our BTO flats for affordability, and these come, therefore, with significant market discounts even before you apply the grants that you are means-tested for."

He noted that in the recent February BTO launch, for instance, four-room flats were typically sold for around S$350,000 to S$650,000 (US$262,000 to US$486,000) depending on the project and location.

Taking into account that the median starting salary for graduates last year was S$4,500, for a couple with a combined income of S$9,000, all projects are within reach after a few years into their job, "with little to no cash outlay" for the monthly loan instalment, Mr Lee said.

He added that the Standard, Plus and Prime flat classifications keep flats in attractive locations that fetch higher prices affordable for first-timers.

Tanjong Rhu Parc Front, for instance, is a Prime project, and comparable resale flats in the area would cost more than S$900,000. For a flat here, the government will apply a market discount and layer on additional subsidies since it is a Prime project.

This means a four-room BTO Prime flat will cost around S$640,000 before grants.

"Beyond the additional subsidies, the new flat classification framework also seeks to limit the lottery effect and be fairer to buyers who did not receive additional subsidies because they bought Standard flats," said Mr Lee.

Tighter restrictions are also in place for Plus and Prime flats, such as a longer Minimum Occupation Period of 10 years compared with the five years for Standard units, subsidy recovery, as well as tighter conditions on renting and resale.

"These restrictions seek to reinforce owner-occupation objective in public housing, and reduce the investment value when buying a BTO flat, and thereby seek to limit speculative gains, or the lottery effect," he added.

"We will continue to update our policies, continue to update our schemes to support Singaporeans of all walks of life, at different stages of their life journeys."

About 12,000 HDB flats with shorter wait times to be launched by 2027, surpassing total of past 5 years