There is good news for people wanting a home in Singapore as the Housing Development Board (HDB) plans to launch 17,000 new flats in 2018, said Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong in a blog post today.
Presenting plans of the coming year, he wrote, “For 2018, HDB will maintain a steady supply of about 17,000 new flats, comparable to the 17,584 flats launched in 2017. Over the course of the coming year, new flat buyers can look forward to a good spread of projects across mature and non-mature estates, including flats in the new Tengah town.”
He added, “In the second half of 2018, we will launch about 1,000 flats in Sembawang, Sengkang and Yishun. These flats will have shorter waiting times of about 2.5 years, instead of the typical 3-4 years for most other BTO projects.”
The Minister added that Singapore Government would continue to “calibrate our flat supply carefully, taking into account underlying demand and the stability of the HDB resale market.”
Doing a review of the public housing of the present year, Wong wrote, “2017 has been another fruitful year for public housing. This year, we focused much of our efforts on helping first-timer families move into their homes more quickly.”
He said, “For first-timer couples looking to settle down quickly, we made buying a flat on the open market more affordable by enhancing the CPF Housing Grant from SGD30,000 to SGD40,000/SGD50,000 in February 2017.”
“In total, first-timer couples can now receive up to SGD110,000 in grants (comprising the enhanced CPF Housing Grant, Additional CPF Housing Grant and Proximity Housing Grant) when buying a resale flat. Since the changes, close to 6,900 first-timer households have benefitted from the enhanced CPF Housing Grant,” he added.
Referring to the Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (PPHS), Wong said “This scheme is to help couples who are waiting for their new flat to be ready. To date, about 840 households have benefitted from the higher PPHS rent subsidies.”
On a concluding note, he wrote, “We will also continue our efforts to ensure that our housing policies remain inclusive and enable families to live closer together for mutual care and support.”
