Here's some good news for young couples.

The balloting time for BTO flats will be reduced from six weeks to three, while the announcement for upcoming BTO projects will be increased from three months in advance to six.

This was the announcement made by Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong, on March 7, at his ministry's Committee of Supply 2019 debate, Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported.

Both of these changes will kick in, starting from the May 2019 BTO exercise, which means the May exercise will see HDB announce the list of BTO sites for August and November.

CNA further reported Wong as stating that HDB had conducted a fundamental review of  its processes after being challenged by Wong to shorten the balloting time.

Number of BTO flats with shorter waiting times to also be increased

Wong said that the number of BTO flats with shorter waiting times of between two to three years would be increased to 2,000 for 2019.

Acknowledging the weight of the decision for first-time couples in applying for BTO flat, Wong was said:

"For first-timer couples, applying for a BTO flat is a major decision. And one consideration is the location of the flat. Very often potential buyers want to know the planned locations of future BTO sales exercises, not just the present one so they can decide whether to put in an application now or hold back and wait for a subsequent sales exercise."

Wong added that while the government has thus far been careful in revealing too much information about future sales due to unforeseen changes in the building plans, he understood why buyers would want more information to plan ahead.

He said that the government would also continue to see how they could reduce the duration of the processes further:

"...we will continue to review how much more we can do and whether we can compress the timeline further."

Wong added that in the meantime, those in urgent need of flats could opt to go for Sale of Balance Flats or the Re-offer of Balance Flats.

Top photo from Zac Bruno Facebook