Why We Decided on a Resale HDB Flat as Our First Home

In our #POV series, MyNiceHome speaks to young home owners about their home ownership journeys, and invites them to share their unique stories and experiences, directly from their point of view.

Hi there! We’re Chris and Rebecca, and we recently bought a 4-room resale HDB flat as our first home.

Congratulations! How did you decide on a resale HDB flat, over a BTO flat?

When we were deciding between a BTO and a resale HDB flat, we considered 3 things – timeline, kids, and cost.

For context, we’re 29 and 27, so time was an important factor for us. BTO flats are the most affordable, but we couldn’t see ourselves waiting for a BTO flat to be built. SBF flats were also an option, but it’s competitive because of their limited supply – we knew friends who didn’t manage to get a flat after multiple tries, and who decided to get a resale flat in the end.

At the end of the day, we decided that buying a resale flat would best fit our life goals. We wanted a home we could move into soon – we want kids in a few years, but we also wanted some time to ourselves in our home for the first year or two.

What were some key considerations when looking at resale HDB flats?

We focused on three things:

1. Estate

We visited different estates during weekday nights to get the vibe of the area. We looked around the common areas and tried to get a feel of the resident profile of the estate. We even checked out the notice board – community events and notices can tell you a lot about what’s happening in the neighbourhood.

2. Unit Surroundings

Beyond the estate, it was important for us to check out the immediate surroundings of the unit – for example, getting a sense of our future neighbours or checking the sound levels if the unit faced a void deck or a road.

3. Age and Long-term Development

Did you know that the remaining lease of a flat may affect how much loan you can take and how much CPF savings you can use? Considering our age, we were looking for flats that were less than 30 years old as ideally, the lease of the flat should last us till age 95 and beyond.

For older units, we made sure to check if the blocks had undergone the Home Improvement Programme (HIP), so we knew whether to expect future upgrading works.

For a long-term view, we also checked URA’s Master Plan to see if there are any upcoming expressways, malls or MRT stations.

On the flip side, was there anything you were willing to trade off?

We didn’t want to overstretch our budget, so we were more willing to trade off location and the age of the flat. We’re not staying in the most central area, but it’s good enough for us at this point in our lives.

Our flat is also a little older – but even when we considered the additional renovation costs like plumbing and electricals, we realised the flat would still be within our budget.

On the topic of budget, how would you recommend budgeting for a flat?

First, you need to know how much cash and CPF Ordinary Account (OA) savings you have. You should also find out how much grants you can get, and the loan amount you can take – this information is available in the HFE letter, which you need to have before you buy an HDB flat. Add up your savings, grants and loan amount to get an overall budget for your home, then look for flats within this budget.

For us, we also wanted to avoid using cash to pay for our flat where we could, as we wanted to keep it for other expenses like renovation. So on top of our budget, we also considered whether our CPF OA savings and grants could cover the downpayment of the flat, and also whether our combined CPF OA contributions could cover our monthly mortgage.

We hope you found Chris and Rebecca’s sharing insightful!

If you're a first-timer looking at a resale HDB flat, learn more about how to buy a resale flat. Good luck on your home hunting journey!