$8,000 rent for 3-room flat in Bukit Merah was input by 'mistake': HDB

A three-room flat in Bukit Merah was listed as being rented for $8,000 a month by mistake, HDB said on Friday (Sept 27).

The unit at Block 12 Taman Ho Swee appeared to have set a new market record for the priciest rent for an HDB flat based on data on rentals signed in August, The Business Times (BT) reported on Wednesday.

However, AsiaOne noticed that the entry had been removed by Friday and re-listed for $900.

In a statement to AsiaOne on Saturday, the housing board said: "Upon further checks, the owner clarified that a typographical mistake was made in the application form, listing a rental rate of $8,000 per month for the entire flat, instead of $900 per month for a single bedroom rental, as intended."

The rents are self-declared on rental application forms and subsequently added on HDB's database as a "reference point for homeowners and renters", HDB added.

Though HDB verifies applicants' eligibility before the rental application is uploaded to the website, the housing board does not check the accuracy of the rental data since the price is a "private matter [agreed] between owners and tenants".

Speaking to AsiaOne on Thursday, Mohan Sandrasegeran, Head of Research and Data Analytics at Singapore Realtors Inc (SRI), called the $8,000 rental rate a "significant outlier".

The majority of three-room flats in Bukit Merah had rental prices between $2,000 and $4,000 in the first eight months of 2024, he said.

A search on PropertyGuru also showed a three-room flat of 581 sq ft at the neighbouring Block 14 currently listed for $3,500 per month, while the HDB website showed other flats at Block 12 listed between $2,400 and $3,300 this year.

These flats are an eight-minute walk from Havelock MRT with 45 years left on the lease.

drimac@asiaone.com

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