7,970 Flats in October's BTO. The Ones Nearest the MRT Cap Out at 4-Room.

The October Build-To-Order exercise is the last of 2026, and the headline number is 7,970 flats across seven projects in six towns. It is the largest of the year's three exercises — about 41% of the 19,600 flats HDB planned for 2026.

The headline is not the useful part. The useful part is the composition, and the composition contains a trade-off that no applicant gets to negotiate: in this exercise, proximity to an MRT station and a flat large enough for a family are mutually exclusive.

What is actually on offer

HDB's published launch details, tabulated by Stacked and ERA, give the flat types site by site:

Read down the last two columns together. The four projects at the top — the only ones within a five-minute walk of a station — offer no flat larger than a 4-room. That is 4,370 units, or 54.8% of the exercise, where the largest thing you can ballot for is a 4-room.

The three projects that do offer 5-room flats are all 10 to 15 minutes from a station, and one of those stations does not exist yet: Tengah Plantation is expected to open around mid-2028, with the Jurong Region Line fully complete by 2029.

More than half the best-connected supply is not family stock

Where HDB has published the flat-type split, the picture gets sharper still.

At Caldecott, the 1,430 units break down as 260 Community Care Apartments, 590 2-room Flexi and 580 4-room. So 580 of 1,430 — 40.6% — are family-sized. The remaining 59.4% is either a 2-room Flexi or a Community Care Apartment, the latter being senior housing with care services attached.

Across the two Bayshore sites, ERA reports that 49.6% of the 2,500 units are 2-room Flexi. That is 1,240 units, leaving 1,260 across the 3-room and 4-room types.

Put the three best-connected projects together — both Bayshore sites plus Caldecott, 3,930 units, every one of them beside an MRT station:

A 2-room Flexi is 36 sqm or 45 sqm depending on type. It has one bedroom. Families are eligible to apply, but a household of four is not moving into 36 square metres, and Community Care Apartments are for seniors aged 65 and above. So on the land HDB has chosen to build closest to the MRT network, the majority of the supply is one-bedroom or senior stock.

That is not an accident of this launch. It is what happens when land near stations is scarce and the policy goal is to house more people on it.

Where the 5-room flats went

All 3,600 units in the three outer projects offer a 5-room option, though 5-room is only a slice of each. At Chencharu, the 1,580 units split into 390 2-room Flexi, 80 3-room, 460 4-room and 650 5-room — so 5-room is 41.1% of that project, and family-sized flats (4- and 5-room together) are 70.3%.

Compare that with Caldecott's 40.6% family-sized share and the shape of the exercise is clear. If you want space, you are choosing Tengah, Chencharu or Sembawang North. If you want the station, you are choosing a 4-room at most.

Tengah is also the only site in the exercise offering a 3Gen flat, and the first Tengah launch in three years.

The classification adds a second cost

ERA expects both Bayshore projects and the Caldecott project to be launched as Prime, and the Mattar project as a candidate for Plus. HDB has not confirmed these, so treat them as informed expectations rather than fact — but if they hold, the four best-connected projects are also the four carrying the heaviest resale restrictions.

Under the classification framework introduced in October 2024, Plus and Prime flats carry a 10-year minimum occupation period against five years for Standard. They are subject to subsidy recovery on first resale — set at 9% of resale price for Prime and 6% to 8% for Plus at the October 2024 launch, and varying by launch since. Resale buyers must meet the prevailing $14,000 household income ceiling, and letting out the whole flat is not permitted.

So the trade being offered at Bayshore and Caldecott is not just "smaller flat, better location." It is a smaller flat, in a better location, that you must live in for ten years and sell into a narrower buyer pool with a slice returned to HDB. We have written before on what a 10-year MOP actually blocks and on the true cost of a Prime or Plus flat.

None of that makes these bad flats. A 4-room one minute from Bayshore MRT, in a precinct planned for 12,500 homes with East Coast Park ten minutes away, is a genuinely good asset. The point is that the ten-year clock and the 4-room ceiling are the price of it, and both are visible now rather than in year six.

What this means if you are applying

Three things follow from the composition.

If you need a 5-room, your shortlist is three projects long. Tengah, Chencharu and Sembawang North. Balloting odds there are likely better than at Bayshore or Caldecott, which is the compensation for the distance.

If you are a single, this is an unusually good exercise. With 2-room Flexi in every one of the seven projects and roughly 1,240 of them at Bayshore alone, the supply of one-bedroom stock in well-connected locations is larger than usual. Singles aged 35 and above buying under the Single Singapore Citizen Scheme face a $7,000 monthly income ceiling.

If you are a family weighing Bayshore against a resale flat, the comparison is no longer BTO-versus-resale on price alone. It is a 4-room with a ten-year lock against a resale 5-room you could buy today with a five-year MOP and no clawback — and the grant stack on the resale side is worth up to $110,000 that BTO buyers cannot claim. Our BTO versus SBF versus resale comparison runs that math.

The exercise launches in October. Unit counts and flat-type splits are HDB's published launch details as reported by ERA and Stacked, and the final figures at launch can differ. Classifications are unconfirmed until HDB announces them.

Methodology published. No spin.