Reasons Given by Applicants for Rental Flats
Ministry of National DevelopmentSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns the reasons for HDB rental flat applications, the number of households transitioning to home ownership, and the current proportion of rental units within the total housing stock. Senior Minister of State Dr Koh Poh Koon stated that 2,600 households move into rental flats annually due to overlapping factors like divorce or financial hardship, with 1,600 having eventually upgraded to their own homes. He noted that rental flats currently account for 56,000 of the approximately one million total HDB units. Regarding the purchase of existing rental units, Senior Minister of State Dr Koh Poh Koon explained that HDB encourages tenants to move to 2-room Flexi flats instead. This policy ensures that the rental stock is preserved for other needy households who require public housing assistance.
Transcript
10 Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked the Minister for National Development (a) what are the reasons given by applicants for rental flats in the past 10 years; (b) what is the number of applicants for each reason; (c) how many of them have ultimately managed to find their own flat to upgrade and returned the rental flat; and (d) what is the current number of rental flats as compared with the total number of HDB flats.
The Senior Minister of State for National Development (Dr Koh Poh Koon) (for the Minister for National Development): Madam, the Housing and Development Board's (HDB's) public rental flats cater to households with no viable housing options or family support. In the last 10 years, an average of 3,000 households a year were successful in their applications for rental flats. Of these, an average of 2,600 households a year decided to move into HDB rental flats, with the remainder cancelling their rental request, for example, because they have found alternative housing options.
Households request for rental flats for a variety of reasons, such as inability to afford a flat, perhaps it is a divorce, loss of employment or medical issues. It will be difficult and not meaningful to break down rental requests by reason, as a household may have multiple overlapping reasons for an application for a public rental flat.
Of these households, about 1,600 have returned their rental flats to HDB and now have their own home ownership flats.
There are about a million HDB flats, of which about 56,000 are rental flats, comprising a mix of 1- and 2-room apartments.
Mdm Speaker: Mr Gan Thiam Poh.
Mr Gan Thiam Poh (Ang Mo Kio): I thank the Senior Minister of State for the comprehensive reply. May I know whether HDB would consider allowing them to buy over their existing rental flats?
Dr Koh Poh Koon: Madam, is the Member asking about whether existing rental tenants can convert their rental flat into a home-owned one?
Mr Gan Thiam Poh: Yes.
Dr Koh Poh Koon: In the past, we do have such a scheme. Today, we are hoping to encourage them to move on to, say, an established 2-room flexi flat so that we can keep the rental stock for other needy tenants.