November 2022 BTO exercise sees lower application rates
Among the non-mature estates in the kick off, which comprises Bukit Batok, Tengah and Yishun, five-room condos in Tengah observed the highest interest, with 2,849 applications received for the 670 units offered, or an application rate of 4.3. Huttons’ Lee attributes this to customers seeking larger units, which give even more adaptability to accommodate combination work and home-based learning events. “Tengah has actually continually drawn in many clients for its sustainability style and closeness to major work centres in Jurong East Regional Centre along with Jurong Innovation District,” he adds.
Sun associates the low number of applicants to a number of reasons, consisting of buyer demand being sidetracked to the Sale of Balance Flats (SBF). Pointing out data released by HDB, she mentions that 25,350 applications were received for the 1,071 SBF units readily available in the November purchases exercise, converting to an application rate of 23.7. According to Sun, the stronger demand for SBF units indicate a choice by buyers for flats with a shorter finish period. “Most SBF apartments might be finished faster than newly released BTO apartments in the exact same neighborhood since they are launched in earlier phases,” she says.
In addition to the Kallang/Whampoa PLH flats, flats in Queenstown, that include both PLH and non-PLH units, were additionally prominent amidst applicants, mentions Lee Sze Teck, senior director, study at Huttons Asia.
From a full-year perspective, OrangeTee & Connection’s Sun highlights that the complete number of candidates for all BTO and SBF sales exercises this year appeared at 167,119, 16.3% greater than the 143,706 applicants logged in 2021. In terms of BTO open, the number of applicants increased by 22.6% y-o-y in 2022 to 117,251, while the amount of SBF applicants enhanced by 3.7% y-o-y to 49,868.
The highest application prices in the November BTO exercise were captured for the 3- and four-room apartments under the Prime Location Public Housing (PLH) Model undertaking in the mature Kallang/Whampoa property. 4,561 applications were obtained for the 405 four-room apartments offered, which works out to an application rate of 11.3. For the three-room condos, 550 applications were acquired for the 72 units released, equating to a 7.6 application rate.
The November 2022 Build-To-Order (BTO) sales exercise closed on Dec 2 with 24,562 requests obtained, according to data launched by HDB. HDB is supplying 9,655 flats up for sale following the exercise, making it the leading offering to date for an individual launch.
From a supply standpoint, the variety of BTO units released this calendar year leapt by 35.5% y-o-y to 23,184 units, while SBF units introduced fell 29.6% y-o-y to 3,023 units. Completely, units launched in 2022 totalled 26,207 condos, up 22.5% y-o-y.
The variety of applications got works out to an overall application rate of 2.5. This is less than the 7.8 application cost subscribed for the August 2022 BTO sales exercise, when 39,136 applications were acquired for 4,993 released condos.
Other factors for the reduced BTO applications may include the cooling measures that came into impact on Sept 30. According to Sun, many customers may be anticipating costs in the resell market to drop, and also are thus holding off on purchasing a BTO flat just to acquire a finished home in the secondary market.
However, OrangeTee & Tie’s Sun highlights that PLH apartments in Kallang/ Whampoa were much more prominent than those in Queenstown, possibly as a result of their closer distance to the midtown core. “This shows that there could be several buyer resistance if the borders of PLH model condos are pushed too far inland, and not everyone is prepared to trade a more location for a long lowest profession duration,” she follows.
Christine Sun, senior vice president of research also analytics at OrangeTee & Tie, notes that the variety of applications in November slipped by 37.2% matched up to the August exercise. “This is the lowest general BTO application cost ever since September 2019 with an application rate of 2.1,” she highlights.
