SINGAPORE – Home buyers in the upcoming Build-to-Order (BTO) sales exercise in October will have to wait less than three years for their units with the launch of 2,085 flats in three projects in Bukit Batok and Sengkang.
Housing Board on Oct 6 said the launch includes 689 flats in West BrickVille @ Bukit Batok with a waiting time of two years, one of the shortest wait periods ever.
The sales exercise in October follows the release in June of a 791-unit project in Woodlands with a waiting time of two years and 11 months.
In total, HDB will have offered 2,876 flats in 2024 with a waiting time of under three years.
This means it will meet ahead of schedule a 2025 target it had set to offer 2,000 to 3,000 flats each year with a waiting time of less than three years.
The launch in October is HDB’s third and final BTO exercise for 2024, after it reduced the number of BTO launches per year from four to three.
Home buyers vying for units in the same exercise in two other projects in Sengkang will have to wait a little longer.
The waiting time for 545 flats in Fernvale Sails is two years and three months, while the waiting time for the 851 flats in Fernvale Oasis is two years and nine months.
HDB chief executive Tan Meng Dui said the board has been working closely with various government agencies to make project sites available earlier.
He added that construction works actually start many months – or even more than a year – ahead of a project launch.
As a result, HDB has been able to offer nearly 3,000 flats with waiting times of less than three years in 2024, almost four times the number of such flats it offered the previous year.
“This builds on the current delivery timelines of our mainstream BTO projects, where we have already been awarding tenders and starting construction as soon as the sites become available, instead of waiting till the sales launch for flat applications to come in,” said Mr Tan.
HDB said it will continue to recalibrate its building programme over time so that flats with waiting times of less than three years make up a larger proportion of new supply.
West BrickVille @ Bukit Batok comprises five 14-storey blocks with two-room flexi, three-, four- and five-room flats.