SINGAPORE — There were more than four applicants vying for each of the four-room units at the Dakota Breeze project and the five-room, three-generation flats at Woodleigh Hillside on offer in the latest Build-To-Order (BTO) exercise, which closed Wednesday (May 24).

The four-room flats at Dakota Breeze in Geylang were subscribed 4.7 times as of 5pm yesterday, with 3,173 applicants gunning for the 671 units available.

Over at Woodleigh Hillside in the popular Bidadari estate, the five-room, three-generation flats were also subscribed 4.7 times, with 1,753 applicants jostling for 374 units.

In both instances, second-time applicants far outstripped first-timers. At Woodleigh Hillside, for example, second-timers vying for a five-room, three-generation flat turned in an application rate of 34.1, markedly higher than the application rate of 3.2 for first-timers.

There was, however, a more muted response to other flats.

The three-room units at Geylang’s Dakota Breeze and Pine Vista, for instance, were subscribed only 1.3 times, with 376 applicants setting their sights on the 300 units on offer.

International Property Advisor chief executive Ku Swee Yong said the prices could be “too high” for first-time applicants. Three-room flats were less appealing to second-time applicants with children, he noted.

The picture was largely similar for projects in the non-mature towns of Yishun and Woodlands, with three-room and bigger flats subscribed no more than 1.8 times across the board.

For instance, the five-room, three-generation flats in the Forest Spring @ Yishun project were subscribed just 1.4 times. Mr Nicholas Mak, the research and consultancy head at SLP International Property Consultants, said that the popularity of the Dakota Breeze and Woodleigh Hillside projects was within expectations.

The Dakota development, for instance, will be in a “very-well-developed mature estate” and is situated near the Dakota MRT Station as well as amenities such as markets and shops.

On the whole, however, Mr Mak said that demand for BTO projects appears to be tapering, pointing to the overall application rate of 2.7 for three-room and bigger flats in this exercise.

In the exercise that ended in November last year, which included flats in Punggol and Bedok, the overall rate was 3.6 for such flats, he added.

The Government’s increased grants to help first-timers buy resale flats, announced in this year’s Budget, may have “drawn away some demand” from BTO projects, and very soon, applicants may be able to get the flats they want in a shorter time.

Mr Ku added that, with the rise in the number of BTO projects launched since 2012, the demand from first-timer families could have been “largely satisfied”. It could be time to raise the allocation of flats for second-timers, or to “scale down” supply on the BTO front, he said.

The next BTO launch in August will involve around 3,850 new units in Bukit Batok and Sengkang.