Price gap between resale and BTO flats grew in 10 years

The average price difference between HDB resale flats and BTO flats has increased in the past ten years. For units in the suburbs, or OCR (Outside Central Region), the price difference is 31 percent today, while it was 18 percent in 2004. Minister of National Development Khaw Boon Wan revealed this in a written response to a query in yesterdays parliamentary session. He cautioned price comparison between the public and the private housing markets should be interpreted with care, given the wide range of private property available, from shoe-box units to luxurious penthouses. In the past 10 years, new HDB flats were mostly built in non-mature estates with some in the mature estates where land was available. The non-mature estates are all located in the OCR. The few BTO projects in the mature estates straddle both the OCR and the RCR (Rest of Central Region), he said. As OCR and RCR are terms used to group private properties in Singapore, they do not coincide with the HDB classification of mature and non-mature estates. The gap also grew between private residential properties and HDB resale flats.Private homes cost an average of 118% more than HDB resale flats in 2004. Today the difference is 158%. Image source: Terence; Wikimedia Commons Muneerah Bee, Senior Journalist at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories emailmuneerah@propertyguru.com.sg

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