(Five-room flats in Tampines were the most popular in the last BTO launch. Image courtesy of Terence Ong.)
This announcement came just as the latest BTO offering of 3,957 flats closed last week. The six BTO projects – located in Pasir Ris, Punggol West, Tampines and Woodlands – will only be built after a sufficient number of eligible buyers have registered. It became the largest number of BTO flats launched at one go.
Khaw expressed that response for this launch was “good and within expectation”. Indeed, over 13,000 home seekers have applied for the flats, at an average of three applications per unit. The highest demand went to five-room flats in the mature estate of Tampines, which saw an overwhelming subscription of seven times the units available. There are 320 such units, each measuring about 1,200 sq ft and cost between $371,000 and $444,000. Khaw also noted that excluding the Tampines projects, the average application rate would drop to about 2.5 times the units available.
On the other end of the spectrum, the least popular units were two-room flats in Pasir Ris. Of all 257 of these units, which measure 500 sq ft and cost between $120,000 and $143,000, only 76 applications were received.
With this recent launch, the total number of BTO flats that HDB has offered stands at 12,000 units. This month, HDB is looking to launch some 2,100 flats in the Bukit Panjang and Sengkang areas.