Couple secure dream home in 8 weeks with HDB resale portal
Real estate marketing director Leon Chea, 35, and travel consultant Mandy Chan, 31, in their new home. They are the first people to complete their transaction through the new HDB resale portal. Photo: Toh Ee Ming/TODAY
SINGAPORE — Instead of having to endure a 16-week wait to become homeowners, real estate marketing director Leon Chea, 35, and travel consultant Mandy Chan, 31, took half that amount of time to secure their resale Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat.
On Monday (March 5), the couple collected the keys to their new home, and became the first people to complete their transaction through the new HDB resale portal.
Revamped in January with streamlined processes, the portal promises to halve the time for resale transactions, and reduce the number of trips buyers and sellers have to make to HDB to sign papers.
In a media release, the HDB said at the end of February, the portal had registered about 6,800 intents to sell and 7,400 intents to buy a resale flat. Of these, about 2,000 resale transaction cases have been approved, with the buyers and sellers pending the resale completion appointment to sign the necessary documents.
For the Cheas, who got married in January last year, the portal came at the right time, and helped them to fulfil their goal of securing their home within a year of their marriage.
They did not want to wait for a Build-To-Order flat as that would entail a longer wait, so they opted to purchase a resale flat in the North-eastern area.
The couple started house-hunting in November last year. It took them 20 house viewings over one and a half months before they settled on a three-room flat in Hougang Avenue 3.
They paid S$338,000 for the unit, which has about 60 years’ lease left.
Mr Chea said the new portal was “quite user-friendly”, and “makes the whole process faster and easier”. It also cuts down the hassle of buyers and sellers having to attend multiple appointments.
Previously, resale transactions took 16 weeks, with flat buyers and sellers having to attend two appointments with the HDB. The first was to work out the sellers’ sales proceeds and assess the buyers’ financial plan, followed by another meeting to sign the documents to complete the resale transaction.
But from Jan 1, the first appointment was scrapped, as the portal integrated all the eligibility checks on a single platform.
Once users log in to the new portal with their SingPass to register their intent, their personal details will be extracted from MyInfo, the Government’s digital identity vault, to fill application forms automatically. They can then conduct various checks through the portal, including their eligibility to buy a flat, apply for housing grants or a concessionary housing loan from HDB.
Mr Choo Choon Hock, who sold his flat to the Cheas, said the new portal made the process a breeze.
The 54-year-old, who is self-employed, sold the flat so he could move into a four-room flat in Sengkang in May to give his daughters, aged 24 and 26, their own rooms.
Compared to his previous experience of selling off his old five-room resale flat about 20 years ago, Mr Choo said he had to visit the HDB office “three to four times” for various appointments.
He added: “(Previously), we would queue up for very long, or had to go home and come back again because we lacked or forgot some documents, so that wasted time. But now, I need to come down only once to do the handover of keys.”
The portal was a boon not just for buyers and sellers, but agents too, Mr Chea added.
As a housing agent himself, he said he used to spend at least three to four hours helping his clients with their first appointments.
Now, he can help them with their paperwork through the portal, and the time saved can be used to look for more clients. For instance, he said he could nearly double his sales from the current four to five clients a month.
One downside, he said that the HDB could work on was to make it easier for users who do not speak English or who are less tech-savvy.
