Getting a BTO - The First Half

Here in Singapore, we have government housing by the Housing Development Board (HDB) where we can ballot for the chance to buy a flat at subsidised price compared to a condo or even a resale HDB flat. These are built-to-order (BTO) flats, meaning you’d be the first owner. Colloquially, a non-resale HDB flat is just referred to as a BTO (and the whole exercise of obtaining it is also called BTO - Singlish is concise).

I haven’t looked into the whole history of HDB flats but it has something to do with controlling housing prices so we aren’t priced out of house and home and forced to live with our parents forever (if that’s even an option).

Anyway, a summary of the process of owning an HDB flat goes like this:
[Phase 1]
1) HDB releases a few (2-4) BTOs available to ballot during a specified window
2) You submit your application to ballot for a unit - you should have decided on which BTO(s) you want by now (more on that later)
3) You get a queue number (if you’re lucky to get one).
4) You go down to HDB HQ and select which unit you want.
5) You sign the lease and pay the deposit.
6) You wait 2-5 years for your BTO to be fully built
[Phase 2]
7) You collect your keys and pay the remainder of the deposit.
8) You inspect the flat for any issues like misplaced tiles, plumbing issues, etc.

So, what’s the BTO process like? Let me regale you with our Phase 1 experience. JK it’s not very exciting but if you’re looking to BTO this might help you know get an idea of what to expect.

Eligibility

First, let’s look at eligibility. There are some restrictions on who can own an HDB flat and without going into intense detail, these are the salient requirements that would pertain to most people’s situations.

You have to be a couple (married/planning to marry) or part of some family structure (with parents, already a nucleus family, etc.)
At least two of you must be a Singapore citizen/permanent resident (can’t be a sole applicant).
You mustn’t own any other property (local or otherwise).
There is a cap on household income (depending on that specific BTO project) [as of the time you ballot].

You can do a quiz thing to check your eligibility here. Singles can’t BTO at all, unfortunately (unless you were orphaned).

Balloting

When we realised BTOs in Toa Payoh were available (this was in February), we wanted to roll the dice and see if we’d get it. This was prime real estate in terms of location, value, and amenities. Our round of BTOs had 3 available locations - Caldecott, Kim Keat, and Sembawang. Caldecott was an equidistant 3min walk from Caldecott and Braddell MRT stations while Kim Keat was quite a distance from the nearest MRT. We didn’t even look into Sembawang because it was just too far for us. Caldecott and Kim Keat were lumped into 1 location - so you’d be balloting for Toa Payoh or Sembawang.

We submitted an application for a 4-room (3 bedrooms) flat in Toa Payoh. This involved a lot of submissions like 12-month records of CPF contributions and whatnot. We also applied under a priority scheme for being within 4km of your parent’s house.

There a few priority schemes and these give you better chances at getting a (good) queue number. It’s a computerised thing so idk the specifics. As first-time applicants, we already get a second chance at the ballot if the first chance was unsuccessful. We don’t see any of this in progress.

We also wanted to apply for a HDB Loan in the future, so they had to assess our eligibility. This HDB Loan Eligibility (HLE) letter is a thing HDB wants to see. We’d have to reapply closer to our key collection date anyway. Alternatively, you could apply for a bank loan but we went with HLE.

The HLE letter came in pretty quickly and it was about a month before we got a notification saying we were given a queue number (around March). Our queue number was pretty awesome, it was in the upper 300s. Considering the 1000+ 4-room flats in Toa Payoh were about 7x oversubscribed, we had about a 3% chance of getting our number. (don’t @ me if the math is wrong). Everyone else we knew who balloted for Toa Payoh this round (at least 3 distinct applications) didn’t get a queue number and just received a “sorry, better luck next time” type of letter. I also have friends who have participated in subsequent ballots who were unsuccessful twice. We felt pretty lucky.

By now, the general layouts of the lot plans, block plans, and floor plans had been released so we started shortlisting units while waiting for HDB to give us our appointment to head down to HDB HQ to actually book it.

Selecting the unit and paying the deposit

This part of the process is actually in 2 sessions. Yes, you have to go down to HDB HQ twice.

The first appointment slot was decided by HDB and we just got a notification about 2 weeks prior. We went down and we had to bring stuff like our IDs, CPF printouts and last several months of pay slips and the HLE letter. We had to get a ticket and waited for our number to be called. This was in August.

The lady was nice and she asked us stuff, told us about the process and double checked all our information. She also gracefully answered any questions we had. The best part: We got our first choice of unit! Yayyyyyy. Caldecott seemed much more popular than Kim Keat (understandably), so we were worried we may have our first choice (HDB website updates this info).

We had to sign into our CPF accounts (laptop provided) and print out our CPF statements there…. They’d instructed us to print and bring these statements so why did they make us print it there and then again??? Must be some fraud thing.

Anyway, so this first appointment settled selecting our unit and getting the finances in order (HLE, government housing grants, etc.).

The second appointment was also decided by HDB (all hail) which was set for somewhere in November. This was the appointment where we signed many, many pages of documents (grant, lease agreement, bills, etc.) and went home with a folder full of papers. It was during this appointment that we got the finalised breakdown of monies that should be paid. This included the 5% deposit (the other 5% at key collection), stamp fees, less the grant amount, etc. We also decided at this point whether we’d be including the Optional Component Scheme where they’d do the floors, walls and doors (as opposed to no doors, and just cement floors and walls). We opted out.

We also walked away with our official full address on our papers! Excitessss.

I honestly wondered how they kept track of where everything was because it was a small table and I swear the papers were scattered everywhere. They seemed unfazed.

All the notifications came via email and we could also log into the HDB portal (MyHDB) to view them. It was also possible to reschedule the appointments we were given in case we couldn’t make it. These two appointments were pretty quick.

The only real downside imo is that we had to print everything we needed to submit (pay slips, CPF statements, etc.). What if neither of us has a printer? It was work-from-home season (as it mostly still is) so it could’ve been pretty inconvenient for some people, I imagine. Not to mention the useless pre-printed CPF statements.

Throughout most of this process we’ve had updates and group chats with other people who are interested in our BTO and/or who applied for the same. Some people bothered to take HDB’s dense information and represent it in an easy, graphic way for the rest of us (e.g., updates on the units that have been selected). If you look for it, you’d probably find such groups for your BTO too!

Now, we wait. The original predicted completion date of the BTO flats was early 2025 but by the second appointment it was readjusted to Q3 of 2025 (ahem, thanks Miss Rona, ahem).