Flood of bids for flats

Over 20,000 apply for 2,132 flats in HDB’s new Sale of Balance Flats

If you were one of the 1,022 who applied for a four-room flat in Sengkang as of 5pm yesterday, your chances aren’t good – in fact, they are a mere one in 39, with only 26 units up for grabs.

This is an extreme example of the overwhelming response to the Housing and Development Board’s (HDB) new Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise.

Just hours to go before the midnight deadline, there were nearly 10 bids for every unit being offered under the scheme. As of 5pm, there were 20,691 applications for the 2,132 flats that range from studio units to executive flats.

The exercise, launched by the HDB on Oct 1, has drawn intense interest because the flats are from surplus stock, which means there is little or no wait for the prospective home-buyer – as compared to the average three-year wait for a flat under the Build to Order (BTO) scheme.

Demand was high across the board, even in less mature and less centralised locations such as Bukit Batok, Choa Chu Kang and Woodlands.

In Bukit Merah, the 395 three- and four-room flats on offer drew 2,087 applications, equating to a roughly one-in-five chance of success.

Centrally located, The Pinnacle@Duxton drew 1,609 bids for 111 units, meaning a one-in-15 chance for applicants.

Odds were better for a three- or four-room flat at Kallang/Whampoa, with better than a one-in-four chance of nailing one of the 1,160 flats.

About seven in 10 applicants in this exercise are first-time buyers, said HDB.

But the sheer response means that even given the usual first-timer priority, these home-buyers do not stand a high chance of being shortlisted, and the board advised that they stood a far better chance under the BTO scheme.

The 2,132 units comprise unsold flats from previous BTO exercises, surplus flats under the Selective En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme, and repurchased flats.

The SBF exercise replaces the quarterly and half-yearly balloting exercise, and may be done once a year or when HDB has enough units to offer.

Mr David Foo, director of Dennis Wee Group, believes this would encourage buyers to be less fussy.

“For the balloting exercise, the applicants can be selective, knowing that if they can’t get (what they want) this quarter, they may get it next quarter. With this new scheme on an annual basis, if you don’t apply you will have to wait till next year,” he told 938LIVE.

Source : Today – 15 Oct 2009