SINGAPORE – A new class of serviced apartments for longer-term stay is in the works to better meet rental demand from Singaporeans waiting to collect the keys to their new homes or for their renovations to be completed, as well as those who are here to work or study.

National Development Minister Desmond Lee on Nov 29 announced that the Government will pilot serviced apartments with a three-month minimum stay period to ensure that demand for longer-term stays can be met.

Two sites in Upper Thomson and Zion Road will be launched in early December under the second-half 2023 Government Land Sales confirmed list, he said at the Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore’s 64th anniversary dinner held at Orchard Hotel.

A portion of the gross floor area for each site will be set aside for long-stay serviced apartments. These could potentially yield a total of about 535 serviced apartments, he added.

Mr Lee noted that even as the majority of Singaporeans aspire to own homes, there has been greater diversity in the housing preferences of Singaporeans, including towards renting.

“We need to maintain a healthy rental supply to cater to those who need to rent, such as those waiting to collect the keys to their new homes or for their renovations to be completed or because they are in some transition, as well as those who are here to work or study,” he said.

While serviced apartments can cater to those who wish to stay in Singapore for longer, their seven-day minimum stay requirement means potential tenants – both Singaporeans and foreigners – must compete with those in Singapore for short stays, including tourists and business travellers, he added.

The long-stay serviced apartments to be piloted will “coexist alongside shorter-stay serviced apartments with existing seven-day minimum stay requirements, and similarly, cannot be strata subdivided for sale”, Mr Lee said.

He added that the two sites under the pilot, which are located next to existing MRT stations and provide easy access to the city centre and amenities, will “allow us to gauge market demand before studying if this can be implemented more widely”.

On the waiting time for Build-To-Order (BTO) projects, Mr Lee said the wait for newly launched projects in 2023 will be between three and four years, including for those in the upcoming December sales exercise.

“This is back to pre-pandemic norms and levels, and good progress from the pandemic peak of four to five years, when we suffered a lot of delays. In fact, close to 70 per cent of the flats launched in 2023 have wait times of four years or less,” he said.

He attributed this to the collective efforts of the Housing Board and its construction partners, “working hard, thinking out of the box to try to shorten project waiting times, and to do it safely”.

These measures include breaking up larger BTO projects into smaller ones so that contractors can better manage their resources and expedite project handovers, prioritising for launch BTO sites where the platform level is ready for construction, and piloting innovative procurement methods to shorten construction time.

“HDB will build on these efforts to launch more shorter waiting time projects, which come with waiting time of less than three years. This will further strengthen our support for Singaporeans, especially first-timers, to own their first homes,” Mr Lee said.

He also noted that many Singaporeans have shared that they aspire to live closer to their workplaces in the city and be nearer to amenities.

The Government is thus planning for more homes and neighbourhoods in more central locations as part of the ongoing Master Plan review, Mr Lee said.

“One of these areas is Pearl’s Hill, near Chinatown, where we will inject both HDB and private housing. There will also be a new mixed-use development that will be integrated with Outram Park MRT (station), which will offer future residents a variety of services and amenities,” he said.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority had announced in early November that about 6,000 public and private homes, including BTO and rental flats, will be progressively developed on the hill in Chinatown over the next decade.

In addition, new residential neighbourhoods are being planned at Mount Pleasant, the former Keppel Golf Course and Bukit Timah Turf City, where the possibility of introducing both public and private housing is being studied.