Applicants are now in a good position to plan for when they will get their flats, while the Government has a better gauge of demand.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan made these points in Parliament on 22 February when responding to Madam Ho Geok Choo (West Coast GRC).  She had asked if the Government would consider reverting to the previous Registration for Flat System.

Mr Mah said the old system led to a situation in the 1990s when the Government was at one point left with 31,000 unsold flats. “HDB took five years to clear its stock of unsold flats.  Having such a large stock of unsold flats is a waste of public money,” he said.

Mr Mah said:” You are anticipating demand based on the length of the queue, and you don’t know whether that is genuine demand or not because there is no commitment to buy.”

Mr Mah said that with the BTO system now in place, the average waiting time for buyers was around 3 ½ years: Processing applications and administrative work could take up to six months, and construction would take three years.

“Under the current speed of rolling out BTO projects, which is once a month now, the chances of the person being successful is actually very high,” Mr Mah said. He added that the vast majority of those applying for BTO flats in non-mature estates succeed within two tries.

Asked by Madam Cynthia Phua (Aljunied GRC) and Mr Yeo Guat Kwang (Aljunied GRC) if the stipulation, that roughly 70 per cent of a project must be sold before construction can start, added to the delay, Mr Mah said this hurdle was often easily cleared.” This hurdle rate of 70 per cent is not difficult to achieve.  On the other hand, it does give us fairly comfortable assurance that if we proceed to build, there will not be oversupply,” he said.