More than 1 in 5 homebuyers applied for Proximity Housing Grant

RECENT measures related to the Housing & Development Board (HDB) resale market have been greeted with a strong response, with more than one in five homebuyers in the 3,506 resale transactions in the past two months having applied for the Proximity Housing Grant (PHG).

Revealing this in a blog on Friday, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong noted that the response towards the new PHG, among measures that kicked in on Aug 24, "has been most encouraging".

Under the PHG, which aims to help Singaporeans buy a resale flat with or near their parents or married child, all Singapore citizen families who buy a resale flat to live with or near their parents or married child will receive a one-time PHG of S$20,000; eligible singles will enjoy a PHG of S$10,000.

"We had deliberately extended the PHG to all Singaporean families looking to buy a resale flat with or near their parents or married children. So there's no household income ceiling," Mr Wong said.

"Even those who had enjoyed housing subsidies or owned private property before can qualify for the grant. We did this because we recognise that the desire to live closer to parents and children is shared by a wide spectrum of Singaporean households, and not just first-timer couples."

Nearly half of the families and about nine in 10 of the singles who applied for the PHG would have been ineligible for any such grants under previous rules.

Following the raising of income ceilings for citizen households to buy new flats from the HDB and HDB resale flats with the CPF Housing Grant, about one in 10 first-timer families and singles are now eligible for the CPF Housing Grant because of the higher income ceiling of S$12,000 and S$6,000 respectively.

Almost one in three new executive condominium buyers is benefiting from the new S$14,000 income ceiling, which was previously at S$12,000, Mr Wong said.