MORE HELP FOR YOUNG COUPLES
The Deferred Income Assessment scheme will be expanded to cover young couples such that only one person needs to be a full-time student or National Serviceman to be eligible. This will kick in from the July 2025 sales exercise.
The scheme allows young couples to apply for a new flat first and defer their income assessment for housing grants or loans to just before they collect their keys. As grant and loan eligibility are usually dependent on household income, deferring this assessment could help couples qualify for a higher loan amount.
Currently, both parties must either be studying full-time or serving National Service (NS), or have completed their studies or NS within the last 12 months of applying for the HDB flat eligibility letter.
Mr Lee said he had received feedback from young Singaporeans that there are often situations where one person has started work after graduation, but the other may still be studying or serving NS.
“But because this is a single-income couple at the point in time when they want to book a flat early, they may not qualify for a large enough housing loan to afford the flat they are looking for and they may have difficulty paying the initial down payment,” he said.
The expansion of the scheme will benefit a wider range of young couples, including those serving NS after graduating from polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education, besides university graduates.
MILLION-DOLLAR FLATS, “LOTTERY EFFECT”
Mr Lee also acknowledged anxieties around resale flats selling for more than a million dollars.
“I want to assure you that there is a wide range of affordable housing for different housing budgets, for both BTO flats, which are new flats built and sold and priced by HDB, and resale flats, which you buy from an existing owner in the open market,” he said.
“One of the key ways to ensure affordability is by pricing our BTO flats for affordability, and these come, therefore, with significant market discounts even before you apply the grants that you are means-tested for.”
He noted that in the recent February BTO launch, for instance, four-room flats were typically sold for around S$350,000 to S$650,000 (US$262,000 to US$486,000) depending on the project and location.
Taking into account that the median starting salary for graduates last year was S$4,500, for a couple with a combined income of S$9,000, all projects are within reach after a few years into their job, “with little to no cash outlay” for the monthly loan instalment, Mr Lee said.
He added that the Standard, Plus and Prime flat classifications keep flats in attractive locations that fetch higher prices affordable for first-timers.
Tanjong Rhu Parc Front, for instance, is a Prime project, and comparable resale flats in the area would cost more than S$900,000. For a flat here, the government will apply a market discount and layer on additional subsidies since it is a Prime project.
This means a four-room BTO Prime flat will cost around S$640,000 before grants.
“Beyond the additional subsidies, the new flat classification framework also seeks to limit the lottery effect and be fairer to buyers who did not receive additional subsidies because they bought Standard flats,” said Mr Lee.
Tighter restrictions are also in place for Plus and Prime flats, such as a longer Minimum Occupation Period of 10 years compared with the five years for Standard units, subsidy recovery, as well as tighter conditions on renting and resale.
“These restrictions seek to reinforce owner-occupation objective in public housing, and reduce the investment value when buying a BTO flat, and thereby seek to limit speculative gains, or the lottery effect,” he added.
“We will continue to update our policies, continue to update our schemes to support Singaporeans of all walks of life, at different stages of their life journeys.”
