The outgoing Main Upgrading Programme (MUP) involves overhauling the insides of flats with new toilets, doors and extra rooms, as well as the common areas of the blocks and precincts. -- ST PHOTO: LAU FOOK KONG

PROPERTY industry experts say Housing Board upgrading works that are carried out under a newly-introduced programme will make older flats easier to sell.

However, the premium on resale prices will be quite a bit lower given that upgrading under the new Home Improvement Programme (HIP) will be smaller in scale, they say.

Still, the cost of upgrading to home owners will be less too under HIP than under the previous programme, they note.

The HIP and another programme, the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP), are the newest kids on the block in HDB's two-decade long upgrading scheme.

Devised to stretch the government dollar over many more households and to pay closer attention to residents' views, they will be rolled out soon in up to 12 locations islandwide, including Yishun and Tampines.

The outgoing Main Upgrading Programme (MUP) involved more extensive work as it overhauled the insides of flats with new toilets, doors and extra rooms, as well as the common areas of the blocks and precincts.

The MUP proved a gold mine for people like Mrs N.L. Chan, who bought her four-room flat in Holland Close for $290,000 in September 2006, when her estate was in the last throes of the upgrading programme.

Just eight months later, she sold it for $330,000 as she had to move closer to her daughter in Dover Crescent.

Read the full story in tomorrow's edition of The Sunday Times.