You have heard much of the hype about the Upcoming EC launch in the market. You may have come across friends or relatives who bought an executive condominium in the past, they have experienced somewhat pretty good capital gain. Some of the second timers who owned HDB upgrade to EC and profited after five to ten years stay when EC become private property. If you have the plan to explore but yet unsure where to begin with, I’ll lay out below information which will help you closer to buying your very first executive condo.
1st Step: Determine Your Eligibility to Qualify for Executive Condo
- Your family nucleus must be at least Singapore Citizen + Singapore PR (Married Couple) OR Both Singapore Citizen.
- Gross Household Income Not More Than $14,000 or Annual Income ($168,000)
- Do Not Own any private residential property OR sold/disposed off private residential within the last 30-months (2.5-years). The 30-months counts from the legal completion date of the disposed of the property. In layman term, the date where your selling represented Lawfirm called you about the sale proceed is ready for collection.
- You have to be First or Second timer to enjoy subsidized flat. If you have bought directly from HDB a new Build To Order (BTO) Flat or Sale of Balance Flat WHICH YOU PAID Resale Levy upon key collection. Meaning you have enjoyed two times of benefit for subsidized flat and therefore you are NOT eligible for EC.
- Have you fulfilled your current HDB Minimum Occupation Period (M.O.P)? General thumb of rules, if you have consecutively stayed more than 5-years in your current HDB, you should have fulfilled the MOP. There might be some minority scenario which some owners rented their HDB within MOP period with special approval, if you fall within this category, please reach out to me personally to understand more as usually this will be on situation specific.
If you fulfill all the above criteria in step 1, you are good to go for step 2, the number$.
2nd Step: Understanding the financial numbers
- 5% booking fee via cheque or cashier order
- 20% balance downpayment payable by CPF AND/OR Cash
- 3-4% IRAS Stamp Duty depending on property price (PP), Below $1mil 3% x PP – $5,400, Above $1mil 4% x PP – $15,400.
- 75% Property Loan by Financial Institution (Banks Only), HDB does not provide loan for purchase EC even though if you are eligible for it. Also, take note, loan ratio maximum of 75% is determined by many factors such as age and income of borrowers. For this, I would strongly suggest you to first get in touch with any bank to obtain In-Principle-Approval (IPA) in advance. Obtaining IPA from the bank does not mean you HAVE COMMITTED any property loan with them until you signed their letter of offer for the property loan. The signing of Letter of Offer usually only happen AFTER you have booked and secured your EC.
- If you are the first timer, you may eligible up to first timer housing grant in the range of $10,000 to $30,000 (depending on your total household income)
- If you are the second timer, you need to take note there will be resale levy payable on top on the property price. The amount of resale levy is determined by the type of subsidized flat. (Extract data from Hdb website)
- Every property transaction shall be handled by Lawfirm for legal paperwork, EC has no exception as well. You will be expecting legal fee estimate around $3000.
Side note: One of the reasons why EC is popular among those who eligible, it is because you do not get a complicated situation which involves Additional Buyer Stamp Duty or reduced second loan while holding onto your current HDB pending the construction of EC. Eventually, you will have to sell away your HDB (within 6-months) from vacant possession of the EC. It is a completely different scenario if you ever consider buying private condominium while holding onto your HDB.
Now that you have cleared the very important financial part and ascertained your eligibility.
3rd Step: Submitting Application For EC
- This step is depending on whether or not the developer of your desired EC has launched the development.
- If the developer has already launched the EC, you may skip and proceed to the 5th Step.
- However, If it is still under the preview stage which yet to be open for booking, you will have to submit E-Application through the appointed marketing agency. In most situation, we are covering almost all the EC launches as official appointed marketing agency.
- Be prepared that you will be asked to prepare some basic documents such as marriage cert and 3-months salary payslip to ascertain your eligibility.
IMPORTANT: It is entirely free at no cost for you to submit E-Application to secure yourself a “ticket” to the preview benefit. Furthermore, you are NOT OBLIGED to book any unit at NO PENALTY should you decided to withdraw the application at any point before booking. A lot of misconception in the public thoughts by submitting E-Application, they are being committed to purchase the EC which is not.
4th Step: Unit Selection & Pricing Release
- At this stage, you shall already get hold of all the information such as site plan, floor plans, orientation about the EC you targeting at.
- Usually, you will be eyeing at a few stacks of preference layout. Make sure to list them down by priority.
- Prior one to two days before the booking, the pricing of each individual unit will be released to make accessible to those who have submitted their E-Apps.
5th Step: Booking of Unit
- You have made up your mind and securing the unit with your 5% booking fee in the form of cheque or cashier order.
- You will be going through and signing document namely Particulars Documentations and Information (PDI) related to the EC and unit you have chosen. Information such as exact to scale floor plan, breakdown of areas of the unit and etc are clearly stated within the PDI.
- The developer will then be issuing you the Option To Purchase (OTP), where this is the important documents for you to send to Lawfirm as well as securing bank loan afterward.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have booked your future dream home. BUT WHATS NEXT?… We are not quite there yet. Read on…
6th Step: Authority Approval, Financing and Lawfirm
- This stage will require an extensive high level of patient, understanding, and cooperation from you.
- As this is an Executive Condominium which required authority’s approval. The developer is required to submit your full documents for ELIGIBILITY APPROVAL assessment.
- This is where complexity kicks in entirely depending on your background. There may be from time to time being asked to furnish further documents as required by the authority. If you are a self-employed or non-income earner, you have to make a trip down to any HDB Branch Office to make a statutory declaration on your income.
- The authority approval usually takes about four to six weeks in a normal straight forward application. However, some may take slightly longer depending on the turn around of furnishing documents lead time until obtaining approval.
- On the financing part, it is time to secure financing from the bank by getting the property loan letter of offer signed. Take note, HDB DO NOT provide loan to EC buyers whether or not you are eligible for it.
- You shall also be appointing a Lawfirm to represent you in the legal aspect for dealing with legal paperwork for the conveyancing until you have gotten the key of the unit.
7th Step: Exercise Sales and Purchase (S&P)
- Finally, you have gotten the good news that your eligibility assessment has been approved and the developer will be delivering the S&P to you. Important Tips: Highly recommended you do inform the developer to deliver it to your represented Lawfirm for your own convenience. Why? Unless you have someone at home waiting to receive the documents, otherwise, it will be wise to just deliver it to your represented Lawfirm.
- You shall make an appointment with your Lawfirm to exercise the S&P as soon as you can to avoid any unforeseen delay.
- If you refer back to 2nd Step, this is where you need to get the 15% balance downpayment and stamp duty ready to be paid. The Lawfirm will need to have a copy of your loan letter from the bank as well.
8th Step: Wait For Vacant Possession
- After much of the anticipating long wait, there comes the time you have gotten news the date to collect the key for your unit.
VOILA! Its time to get the ball rolling on renovating your dream home and moving in! Once again Congratulation that you are now a proud owner of an Executive Condominium!
If you have come to this point thus far, I hope you already grab a good understanding of the process of owning an executive condominium. The above information may seem overwhelming but fret not, I’m here to assist you at no cost no commission from you. You are getting a direct developer unit through me and it is my opportunity to assist you for all the above. You can rest assured I’m truly competent and experienced for all matter and questions related to the executive condominium.
Piermont Grand by City Developments Ltd is the latest executive condominium in Punggol Sumang Walk you shouldn’t miss if you plan to own an EC.
Welcome to call or Whatsapp me at 98528953 for any inquiry you have. I’ll keep you posted on the latest updates of Executive Condominium.