Permanent Residents Selling Their HDB Flats and Proceeds from Such Sale

Mr Baey Yam Keng asked the Minister for National Development (a) what is the number of permanent residents selling their HDB flats in each year for the last 10 years; and (b) whether HDB can look at measures such that the profits enjoyed by citizens and non-citizens are different when they sell HDB flats, for example, a capital gains tax for non-citizen sellers.

In the last 10 years, the number of HDB flats sold by Singapore Permanent Resident (SPR) households in the resale market each year was between 2,300 and 3,500 units.

There are various measures in place to differentiate the treatment of Singapore Citizen (SC) and SPR households in our public housing policies. First, SPR households are not eligible to buy a subsidised new flat from HDB. Second, SPR households do not receive any housing grants when buying a resale HDB flat. Third, SPR households have to pay an Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty of 5% when they buy their first residential property. Fourth, SPR

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households have to wait three years from the date of obtaining their SPR status before they can buy a HDB resale flat. Fifth, SPR households cannot sublet their whole HDB flat and will need to sell their HDB flat within six months of buying a private residential property in Singapore. As there is already significant differentiation between SC and SPR households in our public housing policies today, we are not planning additional measures at this juncture.