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65% of 490,440 flat owners took out HDB loans

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The average monthly instalment for flat owners servicing HDB loans ranges from $567 to $1,253 depending on the flat type.

The Ministry of National Development revealed that 490,440 HDB flat owners were servicing mortgages as at end-2018, of which 65 percent (320,526) took their loan from the Housing Board.

In a written reply to MP Walter Theseira, the ministry noted that 22 percent of those that took an HDB loan owned a three-room or smaller flat, 46 percent owned a four-room flat, 26 percent owned a five-room flat, while the remaining six percent owned an executive or larger flat.

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“The average monthly instalment for flat owners of three-room and smaller, four-room, five-room, and executive/bigger flats servicing HDB loans was $567, $853, $1,058 and $1,253 respectively,” it said.

“Amongst these flat owners, 224,836 (70 percent of 320,526) households paid their monthly instalment fully using CPF monies, 44,693 (14 percent) households paid fully in cash, and 50,997 (16 percent) households used a combination of cash and CPF monies.”

It added that 91 percent of those who took an HDB loan also secured a concessionary loan, the interest of which is pegged at 0.1 percent above the CPF Ordinary Account interest rate, which currently stands at 2.5 percent and does not change frequently.

“This has helped to provide certainty to HDB borrowers on their monthly mortgage repayments.”

Meanwhile, about 169,914 (35 percent of 490,440) households are servicing loans for their HDB flats from financial institutions (FIs).

It added that less than one-third of all outstanding housing loans extended by FIs were pegged to floating market interest rates as of September last year, which was down from around 60 percent in 2016.

“Many FI borrowers have switched to fixed-rate loan packages, which has reduced their vulnerability to market interest rate increases.”

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Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg