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AS AT noon on Wednesday (Oct 23), 33,256 applicants had applied for the 8,573 new Build-To-Order (BTO) flats offered under the Housing and Development Board (HDB) in its October exercise, said ERA Singapore.

This translates to 3.9 applicants for each available unit so far, with most of the 15 projects launched drawing strong interest, and some pockets of under-subscription, said the real estate agency’s key executive officer, Eugene Lim.

The BTO exercise closes at 11.59pm on Wednesday, and HDB is expecting up to 40,000 applications by the end of Wednesday, making for an application rate of four to five times.

A crush of singles applying for two-room Flexi flats pulled the numbers up, with 10,291 applicants vying for the 1,902 units offered.

HDB noted in a Facebook post on Tuesday that strong demand was also recorded for this kind of flat in 2013, when first-timer singles were first allowed to buy them.

“We expect the singles demand to stabilise over time as we ramp up our two-room Flexi flat supply,” HDB said.

ERA’s Lim said: “The sustained enthusiasm – even with the stricter resale conditions on Plus and Prime flats – also suggests that buyers could be focusing on affordability and location over resale flexibility.” He added that the shorter waiting times for some projects were also a draw. (Plus and Prime flats are found in choicer locations, nearer the city centre and have good connectivity and amenities.)

The largest Standard flats in Pasir Ris developments Costa Rivera I and II are so far the most highly coveted ahead of the close of the exercise: the five-room/3Gen flats in the two projects have 6.3 applicants vying for each unit. The wait for the flats in these projects is three years.

Standard flats in West BrickVille @ Bukit Batok, with the shortest waiting time of two years, were also well received. Three-room flats there had an application rate of 1.7 times; the four-roomers were three times subscribed, and five-room/3Gen flats clocked an application rate of 3.5 times.

Least popular was the Jurong West project, Taman Jurong Skyline, which had an application rate of 0.5 for three-room flats and 0.4 for the four- and five-room, and 3Gen flats – despite these units being the cheapest. Lim put this down to their “sub-par location”.

Three-room flats in Plus and Prime projects within Kallang-Whampoa town also drew a lukewarm response and were undersubscribed, with a first-time application rate of 0.8. “We believe young couples planning to start a family may be hesitant to commit to an extended minimum occupation period (MOP) in a smaller flat,” said Lim. (Plus and Prime flats can be sold only after 10 years, instead of the usual five years for flats not in these categories.)

Plus and Prime projects were, in general, well received. Three-room flats in the Bedok projects pulled in a first-timer application rate of 1.6 times, twice the 0.8 times recorded for the Kallang-Whampoa projects, noted ERA.

Among larger four-room Plus flats, the highest first-timer application rate, 3.9 times, was recorded for Central Trio @ AMK, ahead of those in Bedok at 2.5 times.

The sole Prime project in the October exercise is Crawford Heights in Kallang-Whampoa, where four-room flats garnered an application rate of 2.6 times for first-timers, lower than for the four-room flats offered in Ang Mo Kio (3.9 times), Bukit Batok (three times), Pasir Ris (3.4 times) and Woodlands (2.7 times).

Besides having to hold their flats for a longer MOP, owners of Plus and Prime flats who want to sell their units down the road can do so only to buyers who meet HDB’s BTO eligibility conditions. This limits the resale market for Plus flats to buyers who come under the income ceiling of S$14,000. For the resale of Prime flats, the income cap is S$14,000 for families and S$7,000 for singles.

Another restriction is that owners of Plus and Prime flats are not allowed to put up their whole flat for rent, though they can lease out spare rooms. The terms for buying and resale for Standard flats, which make up the bulk of new BTO units, remain the same