HDB May Offer 6,000 Flats In H1

Source : The Business Times, January 23, 2008

SOME 6,000 housing board flats are expected to be offered for sale in the first half of this year, Parliament was told yesterday.
















HDB Hub

Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu said this matches the sales pace seen in the same period last year.

For the whole of 2007, HDB sales programme offered 13,000 flats - more than double the 5,700 flats sold in 2006.

Ms Fu was responding to questions about HDB’s planning parameters and had cited those figures to illustrate the flexibility in the government’s building plans.

For instance, if the HDB sees high subscription rates in a certain area, it would also increase the supply of flats in that area.

Ms Fu also stressed that it is ‘difficult to predict with precision what the actual demand is in a three-year time frame’. For this reason, the build-to-order (BTO) scheme helps prevent an excess supply of flats. Under BTO, construction will proceed only if booking for a sizeable number of the flats has been confirmed.

Yesterday, Ms Fu also urged first-time flat buyers to check out information on flats supply in different locations, and to consider factors like the chances of success in the balloting exercise, the waiting time, and their budget before deciding on a location.