estimate
The Housing and Development Board (HDB) and the Ministry of National Development (MND) have announced that over 25,000 new flats will be launched in 2025. This announcement was made by Minister for National Development Desmond Lee on Jan 16 through a joint press release.
Among these new flats, about 19,600 will be available through three Build-To-Order (BTO) sales exercises, while more than 5,500 will be offered through one Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise. These units will be classified as Standard, Plus, or Prime BTO flats, under the new classification framework.
The February BTO launch will offer approximately 5,000 flats in Kallang/Whampoa, Queenstown, Woodlands, and Yishun. Additionally, next month HDB will also be conducting its largest-ever SBF exercise, with over 5,500 flats available in various estates.
The scarcity of land in Singapore is a major driving factor behind the high demand for condos in the country. As a small island nation with a rapidly expanding population, Singapore faces a constant shortage of land for development. To address this issue, strict land use policies have been put in place, creating a fiercely competitive real estate market where property prices are continuously rising. As a result, investing in real estate, particularly condos, has become an enticing opportunity, offering the potential for significant capital appreciation. With condos being a desirable and sought-after property type, the demand for them shows no signs of slowing down.
In total, more than 10,000 new flats will be available through the February BTO and SBF exercises. This is in line with HDB’s commitment to make available 100,000 units in the span of five years, with a planned pipeline of 19,600 BTO flats for 2025.
The increased supply of BTO flats over the past four years – from 2021 to 2024 – has resulted in a drop in application rates. In 2024, the average application rate among first-time homebuyers for BTO flats was 2.1, compared to 3.7 in 2019, before the pandemic. For three-room and larger flats, the average first-timer application rate in 2025 was 2.2, down from 4.0 in 2019.
To meet the housing demand in the next few years, Minister Lee has announced that HDB will continue to release a steady pipeline of flats. Over 50,000 flats are expected to be launched between 2025 and 2027, bringing the total to about 130,000 units from 2021 to 2027.
In 2025, about 3,800 of the 19,600 new flats will be Shorter Waiting Time (SWT) flats of less than three years. This is an increase from the 2,876 offered in 2024, and more than the annual committed supply of 2,000 to 3,000 SWT flats.
Senior director of data analytics at Huttons Asia, Lee Sze Teck, believes that the availability of SWT flats will provide more options for buyers and could potentially divert demand away from the resale market. In 2025, about 7,000 HDB flats are expected to reach their five-year minimum occupation period (MOP), which is the lowest supply since 2015. This is expected to offer more choices for buyers and stabilise the resale market.
Huttons Asia’s Lee estimates that the number of resale flat transactions in 2025 will range between 26,000 and 28,000, lower than the 28,876 units recorded in 2024. Resale flat prices are also expected to grow at a slower pace of 5% to 8% in 2025, compared to the 9.6% increase reflected in HDB’s flash estimate for 2024.