In his blog post yesterday (Dec 14), Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong announced that he will cut HDB BTO housing supply to 17,000 for next year (2017) and claimed that pricing is “within reach” for everyone:
“In 2017, HDB will launch about 17,000 new flats for sale to Singaporeans. We are gradually tapering supply but still ensuring a healthy pipeline to meet demand… All of these demonstrate our commitment to keep home ownership within reach of all Singaporean families.”
Minister Lawrence Wong also wrote in response to complaints over long waiting period for HDB BTO flats, saying that he is unable to do anything about it:
“For example, over the past year, I’ve received feedback from young couples to make the waiting time for BTO flats shorter. So I’ve asked HDB to plan and prepare the land for several new sites which can subsequently be put out as BTO units with shorter waiting time. These units will not be ready next year, but I hope we can begin to offer them by 2018.”
The newbie Minister also refuse to acknowledge the under-supply of housing in Singapore and cheery-picked the “non-mature estate” statistics, and then claimed application rate has been “stable”:
“Meanwhile, the BTO application rate for first-timer families applying for 3-room or bigger flats in non-mature estates has remained stable and manageable, at 1.5 times for the most recent November launch, and an average of 2.0 times for the whole year.”
Read: HDB housing under-supplied up to 6 times in demand
In the most recent HDB BTO sales launch last month (Nov 2016), the BTO flats for Kallang was oversubscribed by 4.3 times, with 675 applications for only 158 vacancies. Overall, for apartments of 3-rooms and above, there is a 1.2 times oversubscription, at 4,455 application demand for 3,581 vacancy units.
You may read his blog post here.