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In line with the objective of bringing about
greater clarity and transparency in the residential property market, HDB
has released additional public housing data. |
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This will help HDB flat buyers and sellers,
as well as owners and tenants, to make informed decisions before they
commit to buy, sell, sublet or rent a HDB flat. The data will be
released on a quarterly basis. |
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HDB Resale Market |
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HDB¡¯s Resale Price Index (RPI) grew by 3.0%
in 2nd Quarter 2007 over the previous quarter, with price increases
across most flat types and towns. |
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Please see Annex A for the RPI series, and
Annex B for the median transacted prices of resale flats by town and
flat type in 2nd Quarter 2007. |
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The median prices of transacted resale flats
are provided as a guide. The public can find out the transacted prices
of individual flats (by block and flat type) by accessing the HDB
website. |
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Detailed online enquiries can be made
at
http://www.hdb.gov.sg/bb33/ispm051p.nsf. |
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30% of all resale cases in 2nd Quarter
2007 were transacted at or below valuation, with an overall median
Cash-Over-Valuation (COV) of about $7,000. |
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Please see Annex C for the median COV
by town and flat type in 2nd Quarter 2007. |
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The number of resale transactions
increased by 38% from 6,300 cases in 1st Quarter 2007 to 8,700
cases in 2nd Quarter 2007 (see Annex D). |
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This is indicative of a more active
HDB resale market, and the availability of more resale flats to
meet the location and flat type preferences of flat buyers. |
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Upcoming Supply of New Flats for
Sale |
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HDB has observed good take-up rates
for recent public housing projects launched under the
Build-To-Order (BTO) system. For the March 07 BTO exercise for
Treelodge@Punggol, close to 80% of the 712 flats have been booked
to date. |
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To enable flat buyers to better plan
their home purchase, HDB will henceforth announce the indicative
new flat supply under the Build-To-Order (BTO) system in the
coming 6 months. |
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For 2nd Half 2007, HDB plans to offer
about 3,000 new flats under the BTO system. |
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This new flat supply will be in
addition to flats offered under other sales exercises, such as
Balloting Exercises for surplus SERS flats, and the
Bi-monthly/Monthly sales exercises for unsold flats. HDB will
provide the details of the BTO flats when the sales exercises are
launched. |
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HDB Rental Market |
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There were some recent media reports
of certain HDB flats being sublet at very high rents. Based on
HDB¡¯s data, such cases are very few in number and would be
confined to flats with special attributes. |
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Please see Annex E for the median
subletting rents of HDB flats, by town and flat type. While HDB
rents have risen, they remain generally affordable, ranging from
$1,000-$1,400 for a 4-room flat and $1,100-$1,500 for a 5-room
flat depending on location. |
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HDB is also releasing new data on the
volume of sublet approvals by flat type (see Annex F). |
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With the relaxation of HDB¡¯s
subletting policy in Mar 07, there are currently about 645,000
flats that can be sublet by their owners under the Approved
Subletting Scheme. |
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The number of subletting approvals has
increased 50%, from 2,400 cases in 1st Quarter 2007 to 3,600 in
2nd Quarter 2007, and there are currently about 14,600 HDB flat
owners which have been given approval to sublet their flats on the
open market. |
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In addition to the flats leased under
the Approved Subletting Scheme, HDB currently leases out about
1,600 flats to the general public through appointed managing
agents. |
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These flats comprise largely of rental
flats that have been vacated by the former tenants under the
Public Rental Scheme; whilst some are flats that have remained
unsold despite being repeatedly offered for sale to public
applicants. |
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To augment the supply of flats for
rental housing, HDB is working on a special pilot project to lease
out flats that have been vacated under the Selective En bloc
Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) to the general public on a short term
basis. |
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This will put the vacated SERS flats
to better use in the interim period, pending their redevelopment.
For a start, HDB will call a tender in Aug 07 to appoint a
managing agent to lease out 120 vacated SERS flats in Tiong Bahru. |
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HDB will assess the response to this
pilot project, before deciding whether to expand the scheme in
future. If there is strong rental demand, HDB has a potential
supply of about 4,000-5,000 units that can be introduced to
bolster rental supply in the HDB market over the next 3 years. |
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Conclusion |
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HDB will update the data in Annexes A
to F on a quarterly basis on HDB¡¯s InfoWEB, which can be accessed
at the web address www.hdb.gov.sg.
Prospective home buyers or tenants are advised to make use of
these official statistics in their purchasing or leasing
decisions. |
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More..... |
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Source:
www.hdb.gov.sg Press Release 27 Jul 2007 |
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Important
Notice |
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FrontPage Edition: Mon 30 July 2007
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