About 7,960 flats go on offer in the October 2026 BTO exercise, spread across Bayshore, Caldecott, Tengah and Chencharu. That single exercise runs from a site next to an MRT interchange to towns that are still being built, which means the price range, the resale restrictions and the waiting time inside one application window are unusually wide.
The standout on connectivity is the Caldecott project, sitting next to the Caldecott interchange on the Circle Line and Thomson-East Coast Line. Central, established, and priced accordingly. At the other end, Tengah and Chencharu ask applicants to buy early and wait for the amenities to arrive.
HDB has not yet published per-project unit counts, flat-type mixes or classifications for the exercise. The table below is a positioning guide only; verify each field against HDB's launch page when the application window opens.
| Location | Estate stage | Nearest MRT | Likely classification | Suits |
|---|
| Caldecott | Established, central | Caldecott interchange (CCL/TEL) | Plus or Prime (to be confirmed) | Buyers paying up for location and accepting longer minimum occupation and resale conditions |
| Bayshore | New estate, East | Bayshore (TEL) | Not yet published | Buyers wanting a new estate with rail already in place |
| Tengah | Frontier town | Jurong Region Line stations, phased | Standard (to be confirmed) | Price-sensitive buyers with time to wait |
| Chencharu | Frontier precinct, Yishun | Khatib area (NSL) | Standard (to be confirmed) | Buyers prioritising entry price and North-South Line access |
The takeaway: these are four different products, not four addresses for the same flat.
The binding constraint is income, not luck
The decision has to be settled before the ballot, because the HDB Flat Eligibility (HFE) letter, the 30% Mortgage Servicing Ratio (MSR) ceiling and the choice between an HDB concessionary loan and a bank package all sit upstream of picking a project. The guide was published on 19 August 2026, roughly two months ahead of the October window. That is the working time available.
A worked comparison shows why the location choice is a financing choice. Illustrative 4-room prices, pending HDB's published ranges: S$700,000 for a central Caldecott-type flat and S$400,000 for a Tengah or Chencharu-type flat. Assume the full 75% loan-to-value (LTV) limit, a 25-year tenure, and the HDB concessionary rate at 2.6% (verify the prevailing figure at application). Grants such as the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant are excluded here and treated separately, since they reduce the cash or CPF outlay rather than the instalment on a 75% loan.
At S$700,000: downpayment of S$175,000, loan of S$525,000, instalment of S$2,382 a month. Clearing the 30% MSR requires gross monthly household income of about S$7,940.
At S$400,000: downpayment of S$100,000, loan of S$300,000, instalment of S$1,361 a month. MSR requires roughly S$4,537.
On an indicative bank package at 1.98% for a five-year fixed rate (a stated assumption, not a quoted rate), the same S$525,000 loan costs S$2,220 a month, about S$162 less than the HDB concessionary loan. The rate gap moves the instalment far less than the S$300,000 price gap does. What the bank route does change is the cash component: a bank loan requires at least 5% of the price in cash, so S$35,000 at Caldecott against S$20,000 in the frontier towns, with the remainder payable from CPF Ordinary Account.
So the sequence is: confirm the HFE letter, work out which of the four price bands clears MSR on current household income, then decide the loan route. Applicants who reverse that order find out after the queue number arrives.
Sarah Chen
