HDB put 7,964 flats on sale on 4 November, the first exercise under the $16,000 household income ceiling, and the application window runs to 11.59pm on 11 November. The prices settle the question this guide could only sketch in August. A four-room flat starts at $312,000 at Sembawang Anchor, the Shorter Waiting Time project that hands over keys in under three years, and at $558,000 at Toa Payoh Hillside, the Prime project beside Caldecott MRT, before grants in both cases. HDB’s own resale comparables for the same flat types nearby run from $588,888 in Sembawang to $1.2 million in Toa Payoh. The three Plus projects at Bayshore and in Geylang carry an 8% to 9% subsidy recovery on resale, Toa Payoh Hillside carries 11%, and all four come with the ten-year minimum occupation period. Analysts expect the whole exercise to draw 3.5 to 4 applicants per flat, so the value is going to sit where the crowd is not.
Sources: HDB press release and Annex A, 4 November 2026; EdgeProp, 4 November 2026. Prices exclude grants.
What exactly launched in the November 2026 BTO?
Seven projects in six towns, and the classification HDB attached to each one decides the rules you will live under for a decade. Sembawang Anchor, Plantation Dew in Tengah and Chencharu Acres in Yishun are Standard: five-year minimum occupation period, no clawback, no resale restrictions beyond the usual. Bayshore Sails and Bayshore Oasis in Bedok and Merpati Meadow in Geylang are Plus. Toa Payoh Hillside is Prime. The shape of the offer is the same one the August pipeline showed: the central and coastal projects stop at four-room, and every five-room flat in the exercise sits in the north or west.
Unit counts, waiting times and starting prices from HDB’s Annex A, 4 November 2026. Prices exclude grants. Waiting time is HDB’s estimate from the median flat-selection month to the median completion month.
| Project | Class | Flat types | Units | Wait | Starting prices |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sembawang Anchor · Sembawang | Standard | 2R Flexi, 3R, 4R, 5R | 1,310 | 34 mths | 4R $312,000 · 5R $479,000 |
| Plantation Dew · Tengah | Standard | 2R Flexi, 3R, 4R, 5R, 3Gen | 710 | 38 mths | 4R $339,000 · 5R $494,000 · 3Gen $551,000 |
| Chencharu Acres · Yishun | Standard | 2R Flexi, 3R, 4R, 5R | 1,582 | 39 to 41 mths | 4R $353,000 · 5R $484,000 |
| Bayshore Sails · Bedok | Plus, 9% | 2R Flexi, 3R, 4R | 1,637 | 44 mths | 3R $409,000 · 4R $580,000 |
| Bayshore Oasis · Bedok | Plus, 9% | 2R Flexi, 4R | 855 | 38 mths | 4R $559,000 |
| Merpati Meadow · Geylang | Plus, 8% | 2R Flexi, 4R | 438 | 39 mths | 4R $545,000 |
| Toa Payoh Hillside · Toa Payoh | Prime, 11% | CCA, 2R Flexi, 4R | 1,432 | 45 mths | 4R $558,000 · with balcony $619,000 |
The percentage after Plus and Prime is the subsidy recovery HDB collects on the resale price or valuation, whichever is higher, when the flat is sold after its ten-year minimum occupation period. Sembawang Anchor prices include floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings. Two-room Flexi flats start at $131,000 at Plantation Dew and $243,000 at Toa Payoh Hillside on a 99-year lease; the Community Care Apartments at Toa Payoh Hillside start at $151,000 on a 40-year lease, with leases of 15 to 45 years available.
The mix matters as much as the count. Of the 7,964 flats, 2,899 are two-room Flexi, more than one in three, spread across all seven projects. There are 3,114 four-room flats, 1,313 five-room flats, every one of them in the three Standard projects, 354 three-room flats, 28 3Gen flats at Plantation Dew only, and 256 Community Care Apartments at Toa Payoh Hillside, the sixth CCA project and the first offered since the eligibility age came down from 65 to 55. Plantation Dew also offers White flats, an open layout without internal partition walls, priced $6,000, $8,600 and $9,000 below the standard three-, four- and five-room layouts.
Which November 2026 BTO project is the best value?
On HDB’s own numbers, Sembawang Anchor, and it is not close. HDB publishes the transacted prices of comparable resale flats near each project, and the table below sets each project’s cheapest four-room flat against the bottom of that resale range. The three Standard projects in the north and west sit 36% to 47% below resale with no clawback and a five-year MOP. The Plus and Prime projects sit 32% to 41% below resale, but hand 8% to 11% of the eventual resale price back to HDB and lock you in for ten years. The resale comparables also carry 82 to 93 years of lease against a fresh 99, so the true gap is a little wider than it looks everywhere.
HDB Annex A, 4 November 2026: lowest four-room BTO price before grants against the lower bound of HDB’s resale comparables nearby. The discount is our arithmetic on those two figures.
| Project | 4-room from | Resale nearby | Below resale | Clawback · MOP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sembawang Anchor | $312,000 | $588,888 to $635,000 | 47% | None · 5 years |
| Merpati Meadow | $545,000 | $920,000 to $1,100,000 | 41% | 8% · 10 years |
| Plantation Dew | $339,000 | $570,888 to $705,888 | 41% | None · 5 years |
| Bayshore Oasis | $559,000 | $905,000 to $985,000 | 38% | 9% · 10 years |
| Bayshore Sails | $580,000 | $905,000 to $985,000 | 36% | 9% · 10 years |
| Chencharu Acres | $353,000 | $548,000 to $660,000 | 36% | None · 5 years |
| Toa Payoh Hillside | $558,000 | $820,000 to $1,200,000 | 32% | 11% · 10 years |
Remaining lease on the resale comparables: about 93 years in Sembawang, 92 in Geylang, 91 in Tengah and Toa Payoh, 90 in Yishun and 82 at Bayshore. Toa Payoh Hillside’s price is for a four-room flat without a balcony.
The clawback is a real number, not a footnote. Sell a Toa Payoh Hillside four-room flat after its ten years and, for illustration only, a $900,000 sale sends $99,000 to HDB; at $1 million it is $110,000. At Bayshore the same sale costs $81,000 or $90,000. That is the price of the extra location subsidy you take today, and it comes off your proceeds before your own loan is settled. It does not make the Prime and Plus flats bad buys. Toa Payoh Hillside’s comparables already reach $1.2 million, and the first Bayshore batch was priced with a 7% recovery against today’s 9%, so the precinct has been getting dearer. It does mean the honest comparison is Sembawang Anchor at $312,000 with keys in 34 months and no strings, against Toa Payoh at $558,000 with keys in 45 months, an 11% toll at exit, and a ballot that will be several times oversubscribed.
Which November BTO projects will be hardest to win?
Toa Payoh Hillside first, the two Bayshore projects next, Merpati Meadow as the sleeper. PropNex expects Toa Payoh Hillside to be the most in demand of the seven, and points to the 741-unit Toa Payoh Ascent directly opposite, which drew 8.3 applicants per flat in the July 2025 exercise. The project sits beside Caldecott, where the Thomson-East Coast Line meets the Circle Line, next to a planned 1.1-hectare park and close to a mixed-use development earmarked for the area, with the Toa Payoh Integrated Development due by 2030. Its 592 two-room Flexi flats will be fought over by singles. At Bayshore, the first batch of flats recorded a first-timer family application rate of 2.5 times for four-room flats, the second-highest of its exercise, and this second batch is larger. Merpati Meadow is the smallest project in the round at 438 units, a walk from Mattar MRT, and the first Geylang BTO since Merpati Alcove’s 433 flats in October 2024, which is why Huttons and Realion both expect it to run hot.
Across the exercise, PropNex expects an overall application rate of 3.5 to 4 times, up from about 3.2 in February and 3.4 in June, and Huttons sees applicants passing 30,000. The wider pool is the point of this launch: with the ceiling at $16,000, Realion calculates a household can borrow up to $909,372 and buy a flat of up to $1.212 million, which covers nearly every flat on offer including the Prime and Plus ones. HDB’s own advice is the most useful sentence in its release: watch the application rates on the Flat Portal, which update several times a day, and consider the projects running at around one or lower. In this line-up that is likely to mean Chencharu Acres, the largest Standard project at 1,582 flats with 644 five-room units, and the 3Gen and five-room flats at Plantation Dew.
How much income do you need, and what do the grants do?
Less than the headline prices suggest, because the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant of up to $120,000 scales with income. HDB’s worked examples: a first-timer family earning $4,000 a month gets an $80,000 EHG and can service a three- or four-room flat in any Standard project from CPF with little or no cash. At $7,000 the grant is $30,000, which carries a four- or five-room Standard flat or a three-room flat at Bayshore. At $9,000 the grant is $5,000 and a four-room flat in any project, Prime included, is within reach on CPF alone. For first-timer singles, $3,500 a month brings a $15,000 grant and a two-room Flexi flat in a Standard project; $4,500 brings $2,500 and adds the Bayshore two-room flats. After HDB’s illustrative grants, a four-room Standard flat starts from $232,000, a Bayshore four-room from $504,000 and a Toa Payoh Hillside four-room from $503,000. Two numbers to keep in view: HDB loans are capped at 75% of the price, so a quarter is cash or CPF, and while the $16,000 ceiling that lets you in decides whether you can apply at all, the EHG runs on its own $9,000 ceiling and falls to nothing once a family earns more than that.
Should you apply in November or wait for February 2027?
HDB has now named the next round: about 4,300 flats in Bishan, Tampines, Tengah and Toa Payoh in February 2027, alongside a Sale of Balance Flats exercise of about 5,000 flats, with HFE documents due by 15 December 2026. The Straits Times reports a second Mount Pleasant project and Bishan flats with shorter waiting times among them. February is also when the extra ballot chance per Singaporean child aged 18 or below starts, which keeps November the last exercise where a childless first-timer couple competes without the family multiplier in the pool. If that is you, this round is arithmetically the kindest you will see for a while, and the line-up happens to be strong.
If you have children, the pull runs the other way, and we would still mostly resist it. The extra ballots improve your odds only against a February field whose exact sites and prices nobody has seen, while Caldecott and Bayshore are priced and on the table now. A better chance at a project you want less is not a better outcome. The real February attraction for a family is the 5,000-flat SBF, where balance flats come with shorter waits and sometimes keys in hand, and where the child multiplier applies. The exception stands: a family with several children aiming at an ordinary project, where the multiplier compounds and the odds could be materially better. Either way, what your exit looks like a decade from now deserves more thought than the view, because the Plus and Prime conditions outlast most people’s plans.
What should you do before 11 November?
The pipeline guide we published in August ended with the only move that mattered then: the paperwork. The launch version ends with the only move that matters now. Pick the project whose conditions you can live with for ten years, check its rate on the portal, and submit before Wednesday night.
Talk through your November ballot →
Sources
- HDB: HDB launches 7,964 flats across seven projects in November 2026 BTO sales exercise (4 Nov 2026)
- HDB: Annex A, November 2026 BTO flat supply, pricing and resale comparables (PDF)
- HDB: 1,310 Shorter Waiting Time flats to be offered in November 2026 BTO exercise (1 Nov 2026)
- EdgeProp: November BTO exercise launches nearly 8,000 flats, including Toa Payoh and Bayshore units (4 Nov 2026)
- CNA: Nearly 8,000 BTO flats launched across six towns in first sales exercise since income ceiling increase (4 Nov 2026)
- The Straits Times: Feb 2027 BTO launch to include second Mount Pleasant project, Bishan flats with shorter waiting times (5 Nov 2026)
- HDB: Enhanced CPF Housing Grant
- HDB Flat Portal: November 2026 BTO projects and application rates
Balloting by 11 November, or weighing a Plus flat’s ten-year lock against a resale flat you could own next quarter? We map the odds, the clawback and the exit before you commit your one application.
Keep reading
Related notes.
The HFE letter, timed: a nine-month validity, a 30-day trap, and the one window when you cannot apply at all.
Singapore’s HDB Flat Eligibility (HFE) letter gates every flat purchase: a new BTO flat, a resale flat, your CPF Housing Grant and your HDB loan all run through this one document. It is valid for nine months from issue, the formal application must follow your preliminary check within 30 calendar days, and HDB switches the whole e-service off during a sales launch. Here is exactly how to apply, what HDB checks, and the timing mistakes that cost buyers an entire BTO exercise.
Three quarters down, 0.6% in total. What HDB’s Q3 flash really says about resale prices.
HDB’s flash estimate puts the Q3 2026 Resale Price Index at 202.4, down 0.2% and the third straight quarterly dip, while URA’s private index jumped 1.4%. Volumes rose 17.7%, million-dollar flats hit 597, and the gap between an HDB flat and the condo it is meant to fund widened again. Here is what the number does and does not mean.
More flats are coming. What the 2026 to 2028 supply wave does to HDB resale prices.
HDB resale prices have fallen two quarters in a row, and the flats reaching their five-year MOP rise from about 13,500 this year to 19,500 in 2028. History says supply caps the upside but demand sets the direction. Here is where the softness lands first, and what it means if you are selling to upgrade.
Rewritten at launch. First published on 25 August 2026 from HDB’s pipeline, and rewritten on 6 November 2026 with the launch data. Unit counts, waiting times, prices and resale comparables are from HDB’s press release and Annex A of 4 November 2026; prices exclude grants, and the after-grant figures use HDB’s illustrative EHG amounts, so your own grant depends on income and eligibility. The percentage gaps to resale are our arithmetic on HDB’s lowest BTO price and lowest comparable, and the clawback illustrations assume hypothetical resale prices, not forecasts. Application-rate expectations are the quoted analysts’ forecasts, not HDB’s. This is general information, not advice on your circumstances.