Alexandra Peaks BTO Review: A Second Batch Under a Name HDB Had Used Before, and July 2025's Longest BTO Wait

The Alexandra Peaks application window ran from 23 to 30 July 2025 and has closed, and HDB has published its final application rates. As of September 2026, this review is written for households that booked in Blocks 138A or 138B and are waiting for keys, for anyone who missed out and is weighing what Bukit Merah offers next, and for future buyers researching the estate. It covers the July 2025 batch only, not the earlier blocks that carry the same name.

Our recommendation: an Alexandra Peaks 3-room is worth keeping, or buying into if HDB ever re-offers one, for a household that means to spend well over a decade in Bukit Merah; its 4-room was the right pick only for buyers set on these two towers, because HDB's own list gave Alexandra Vista's 4-room a lower start and a shorter wait on the same terms.

Why the 3-room holds up. Peaks' 3-room flats cost $403,000 to $511,000 before grants. That $403,000 is the 3-room starting price HDB's release printed for its single Bukit Merah Prime row, which covers both Alexandra projects, so Peaks had the lower 3-room start of the pair. The trade is time: Vista's 3-room buyers shared the same queue and waited nine months less. The Bukit Merah 3-room row, which HDB shared between Peaks and Vista, drew 0.6 applications from first-timer families for every flat set aside for them, and no town's 3-room row in the July 2025 BTO exercise came in lower. HDB's own income ladder put a 3-room Prime flat within reach of a family earning $7,000 a month.

Why the 4-room needs a reason. Peaks' 4-room flats cost $560,000 to $771,000 for 86 sqm inside (89 sqm with the air-con ledge). Alexandra Vista's cost $547,000 to $775,000 for the same 86 sqm inside, sat in the same Bukit Merah 4-room rate row, carried the same 11% subsidy recovery, and came with a 47-month wait estimate against Peaks' 56. What Peaks offered in return was the towers HDB named it for, "tall residential blocks overlooking Alexandra Canal", and a top 4-room price a shade below Vista's.

For households who booked here, the comparison with Vista is behind you. What is left to decide is whether ten years in the flat after key collection fits your plans: HDB's terms are fixed, and pulling out after the Agreement for Lease costs 5% of the price and a year before you can apply again.

• Who Peaks fits: families, first-timer or second-timer, who want a Prime 3-room or 4-room in what HDB calls "a tranquil retreat near the city", served by "bus services along Alexandra Road and Tanglin Road" and "the nearby Redhill MRT Station", and who expect to stay long after the MOP.
• Who should look past Peaks: anyone who needs keys within three years (it is not a Shorter Waiting Time project); a single buying alone, since Peaks had no 2-room Flexi flats; anyone who may need to sell within ten years of moving in, or who may ever want to let the whole flat, which Prime rules never allow; and anyone for whom price comes first: HDB's own illustration started a July 2025 Standard 4-room at $248,000 after grants.

Peaks' 3-room case stands on the lower start of the pair, in a queue it shared with Vista; its 4-room case stands on the towers; both come with July 2025's longest BTO wait.

Sources: HDB's July 2025 launch release and Annex A; blocks and storeys from the sales brochure.

A name HDB had already used. The brochure says the project "shares the same name as the neighbouring Blocks 139 to 141 and takes its name from its tall residential blocks overlooking Alexandra Canal". The caption under its artist's impression adds: "The units in the two residential blocks on the left are for sale in this exercise, the units in other blocks were released for sale in an earlier sales exercise." Alexandra Peaks is one name over two sales, and 138A and 138B are the later of them.

This review stays with 138A and 138B. The earlier sale falls outside the set of launches we review, and we have not transcribed it, so we give no price, application rate, waiting time or date for Blocks 139 to 141. When you read about Alexandra Peaks anywhere, check the block numbers before you rely on a figure: a price or a wait quoted for the earlier blocks is not what HDB set in July 2025.

Bukit Merah around it. In the same exercise HDB also launched Alexandra Vista, a separate project of 609 Prime flats bounded by Tanglin Road and Jervois Lane. Our records show no other Bukit Merah BTO project launched from October 2024 up to this exercise. After it came Redhill Peaks (October 2025 and February 2026), Berlayar Residences (October 2025) and Berlayar Rise (June 2026), all Prime.

One exercise, two kinds of sale. HDB launched 5,547 BTO flats in 8 projects alongside 4,662 Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) units, and applicants could apply under one or the other, not both. Every "longest" or "lowest" in this review is measured against the BTO projects only.

HDB's brochure is plain that Peaks leans on its neighbours. Its own facilities are "a sky terrace, an adult fitness station, a hardcourt, and a precinct pavilion". For everyday needs it points to the earlier batch: "Residents can also enjoy access to additional amenities at the adjacent Blocks 139 to 141, which include a preschool, an eating house, a minimart, shops, a residents' network centre, and children's playgrounds." Parking is there too: "Alexandra Peaks is served by a Multi-Storey Car Park (MSCP) with a roof garden located at Block 140." The brochure also mentions "therapeutic spaces where residents can rest".

Read off the plan page itself. We rendered the brochure's site-plan page, which is a drawing that the text extract misses, and read it directly. It marks the car park at Block 140, and the public housing blocks numbered 140A to 140C, "U/C": under construction, as at the July 2025 brochure. Its legend lists no children's playground on Peaks' own plot; the playgrounds HDB names are at Blocks 139 to 141. The plan also shows Alexandra Canal and a park connector running alongside the plot, and the brochure promotes "cycling, jogging, and leisure walks along the waterfront". It says the project's facilities "will be accessible to the public", and its general notes warn that "the residential blocks may be completed ahead of the proposed precinct facilities".

Buses on two roads, and Redhill MRT. HDB: "Alexandra Peaks residents will be served by bus services along Alexandra Road and Tanglin Road. The nearby Redhill MRT Station on the East-West Line connects to nearby towns." The brochure gives no walking time or distance, and neither do we.

For the households moving in. HDB's brochure puts the preschool and the minimart in Blocks 139 to 141, and its site plan puts the car park at Block 140; those blocks share the name, and HDB released their flats for sale earlier. HDB's brochure gives no completion date for either batch, and we do not guess one. Once your flat is booked, check its progress on MyHDB Page, as our waiting-times guide explains.

The two towers hold the July 2025 flats; the shops, the preschool, the playgrounds and the car park sit in Blocks 139 to 141, the part of the precinct HDB released first.

Source: HDB's July 2025 Annex A, 99-year lease. Price per sqm is our arithmetic: the midpoint of the range over the floor area including the ledge. HDB's prices exclude grants, the resale levy and "additional payments (if any)".

Tiles and a WC come with the flat; living-room flooring, internal doors and basin fittings do not. Annex A does not mark Peaks' prices as including floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings. The brochure lists tiles in the bathrooms and the kitchen or utility areas and a water closet suite; flooring for the living room and bedrooms, the internal doors and the basin and shower fittings come through HDB's opt-in Optional Component Scheme (OCS), and "the cost of the optional components will be added to the price of the flat". The OCS is chosen at the booking appointment; our renovation guide weighs it against fitting out yourself.

HDB's starting prices after grants, and whose they are. HDB's release prints one Bukit Merah Prime row for both Alexandra projects. Its 3-room "from $403,000", or $313,000 after an assumed $90,000 EHG, is Peaks' own starting price. Its 4-room "from $547,000", or $492,000 after an assumed $55,000 EHG, is Alexandra Vista's; Peaks' own 4-room starts at $560,000. HDB calls these after-grant figures "illustrative".

Peaks' two starting prices after the EHG (first-timer families, at four household incomes):

Our arithmetic on HDB's EHG bands. The EHG depends on your household's average income over the 12 months before the HFE application, stops above $9,000 a month, and in full needs the lease to cover the youngest buyer to age 95.

HDB's ladder: $7,000 for a 3-room, $9,000 for a 4-room. Based on typical selling prices, HDB's July 2025 release said a family earning $7,000 a month could buy "a 3-room Standard or Prime flat in any of the projects", and one earning $9,000 "a 3-room or a 4-room Standard or Prime flat in any of the projects", with CPF servicing the mortgage "with little or no cash payment". At $4,000 a month, its ladder offered only Standard flats.

Borrowing the full HDB loan. Sizing a full HDB loan (75% over 25 years at HDB's 3.0% assessment floor, with instalments capped at 30% of income):

Our arithmetic on HDB's loan rules, before grants; the rate actually charged is below the 3.0% floor used to size the loan. This exercise's applicants were assessed on HDB's family income ceiling of $14,000 a month ($21,000 for extended families), the limits in force before 24 August 2026. Our prices guide sets the loan rules out in full.

At the top of Peaks' 4-room list, a full HDB loan needs a household income of $9,140 a month, just past the $9,000 at which the EHG stops.

An application rate divides the applications from one household type by the flats HDB set aside for that type. It measures how crowded a queue was, not your odds. HDB can shortlist up to 200% of the flats on offer, so a queue number is not a flat; about 20% of applications come from households that applied in earlier launches and may still be waiting to book; and, under HDB's current rules, ballot chances differ by group: three for first-timer parents and married couples, two for other first-timer families and one for second-timer families.

HDB publishes rates by town and flat type, so Peaks' flats were counted with Vista's:

Source: HDB's final July 2025 application rates. HDB printed no rate for seniors or singles in either row.

3-room, counted with Vista. 0.6 means first-timer families sent fewer applications than the 3-room flats reserved for them, in the row shared with Vista. No other town's 3-room row in the July 2025 BTO exercise came in lower for first-timer families. Second-timer families made 10.9 applications per flat set aside for them in that shared row, below HDB's July 2025 BTO median of 11.7.

4-room, counted with Vista. About one flat for every 2.2 applications from first-timer families, in the row shared with Vista: above HDB's July 2025 BTO median of 1.4 for 3-room and bigger flats, and the lowest of the three Prime 4-room rows in that BTO exercise (Clementi Emerald 3.1, Toa Payoh Ascent 6.4). Second-timer families made 12.9 in the shared row, against their median of 11.7.

HDB does not say why the Alexandra rows ran lighter than the other Prime rows. One thing applicants could see at the time: the Alexandra pair carried the two longest waits among July 2025's Prime BTO projects, 56 and 47 months, against 41 at Toa Payoh Ascent and 34 at Clementi Emerald. Whether that weighed with anyone, the rates cannot show.

Rules new in July 2025. From July 2025 HDB raised the second-timer family quota for 3-room and bigger BTO flats by 5 percentage points, and its Family Care Scheme (Proximity) gave priority to parents and children applying to live with or near each other. The rows above were counted under those rules.

No 2-room Flexi, so no singles. Peaks offered no 2-room Flexi flats, so it had nothing for a first-timer single buying alone; Alexandra Vista's 2-room Flexi flats had a row of their own. Our rates guide explains quotas, ballot chances and what a queue number means.

In July 2025's BTO exercise, no town's 3-room row drew fewer first-timer family applications per flat than the one Peaks shared with Vista.

HDB's 56 months is an estimate made at launch, measured from the median month of flat selection to the median projected completion month of Blocks 138A and 138B. HDB gives no completion date or year, and adding the estimate to a launch month would only be our guess, so we do not. The clock starts at flat selection, not at the July application: ballot results come within 2 months of the window closing, and booking starts from 4 weeks after them and takes several months to work through the queue.

Eight July 2025 BTO projects, and Peaks' place among them:

Sources: HDB's July 2025 Annex A, final rates and launch release. Bangkit Breeze and Clementi Emerald price in floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings that Peaks sells as options, so compare their prices with care: like for like, without those items, Clementi Emerald's 4-room started below Peaks'.

Twenty months past HDB's three-year line. HDB's Shorter Waiting Time flats in July 2025 were at Bangkit Breeze and Clementi Emerald, "with waiting times of less than 3 years". Sembawang Beacon's 36 months is exactly three years, and HDB listed it apart from them. Peaks, at 56, is 20 months past that line.

Bukit Merah's later estimates, for context. HDB's estimates for the town's next launches ran from 49/54 months (Berlayar Rise, June 2026) to 56 (Berlayar Residences, October 2025), with Redhill Peaks at 53 (October 2025) and 55 (February 2026). Among those BTO launches, only Berlayar Residences matched Peaks' 56; they came later and had no bearing on July 2025.

Why so long? HDB gave no reason specific to Peaks. Our waiting-times guide quotes MND's general point that difficult sites and very tall blocks take longer to build; Peaks' towers are 38 and 46 storeys, but HDB has not tied its estimate to either. Once you have booked, your flat's building progress and its latest Probable Completion Date are on MyHDB Page.

HDB's July 2025 release: "For this sales exercise, we will increase the additional subsidies for the Prime flats at Alexandra Peaks, Alexandra Vista, Toa Payoh Ascent and Clementi Emerald ... The subsidy recovery rates will be 11% for Alexandra Peaks, Alexandra Vista and Toa Payoh Ascent, and 12% for Clementi Emerald." HDB recovers that extra subsidy as a share of the resale price or valuation when the flat is first sold.

Sources: HDB's Standard, Plus and Prime framework, its rules on selling and letting bedrooms, and the July 2025 release.

What 11% takes from a sale. $11,000 on every $100,000 of the resale price or valuation, and $110,000 on every $1,000,000. Because HDB applies the rate to whichever is higher, a sale below valuation does not shrink its share, and the recovery never lapses: it is due whenever the flat is first sold, after ten years or after thirty. We do not estimate what any Peaks flat might fetch.

The Alexandra pair on HDB's Prime scale. For the Prime projects launched from July 2025 to June 2026, HDB set 10% for Bishan Terraces and Lakeview Cascadia, 11% for Alexandra Peaks, Alexandra Vista and Toa Payoh Ascent, 12% for Clementi Emerald, Mount Pleasant Crest and Redhill Peaks, and 14% for Berlayar Residences and Berlayar Rise. Within Bukit Merah, the Alexandra pair's 11% is the lowest HDB set for any of the town's Prime BTO projects in that span.

The household that buys from you. Under the ceilings for HFE letters HDB receives on or after 24 August 2026, a family buying a resale Prime flat must earn no more than $16,000 a month ($24,000 for an extended family), with or without a grant (HDB). HDB revises these limits from time to time; what does not change is that your buyer has to qualify, and then starts a ten-year MOP of their own, as our MOP guide explains.

The name, again. The 11% is what HDB set for the flats it launched as Alexandra Peaks in July 2025. If you ever look at a resale flat in the earlier blocks that share the name, check that block's own terms with HDB; this review does not cover them.

Peaks' 11% is a share of the first sale, not a fee that fades: HDB applies it to the higher of price and valuation, whenever you sell.

HDB's hand-picked resale flats. Annex A sets each new flat type beside nearby resale flats of HDB's choosing:

HDB: "The differences in attributes between the resale comparables and the new flats should be taken into account when making a comparison." The gap is our arithmetic. So Peaks was priced below HDB's resale comparables; that is not the same as below the cheapest resale flat nearby, and it is not money you hold.

Bukit Merah's 3-room and 4-room resales, July 2025 to June 2026 (our analysis of HDB resale registrations):

Three streets carry the young-flat medians. The lease-from-2015 medians describe a handful of streets: 43 of the 95 young 4-room resales, and 19 of the 44 young 3-room resales, were on Telok Blangah Street 31. The all-ages 3-room median of $435,000 mixes in older flats of every lease age and sits far below the young-flat figure. None of the streets behind the young-flat medians is Alexandra Road.

Timing. These sales happened in the year after Peaks' window closed, so they tell you about the market a resale buyer faces now, not about why anyone applied in July 2025. And a Peaks owner cannot sell for ten years after key collection, with 11% going to HDB when they do.

These are prices other Bukit Merah owners were paid in the year after Peaks' window closed; none of them is a value for a flat in 138A or 138B.

A third Alexandra Peaks sale? HDB has announced none, and it names no project or classification before a launch.

HDB's next exercise, November 2026. HDB's preliminary list for its next BTO exercise covers about 7,960 flats in Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh and Yishun: no Bukit Merah flats. Our launch schedule tracks what HDB adds.

Any unbooked Peaks flats. HDB's Sale of Balance Flats sells flats left over from earlier BTO launches. The last, in February 2026, offered 4,320 flats, and HDB had not announced another as at 18 September 2026. HDB has not said whether any Peaks flats went unbooked, and we do not assume so. If some did, an SBF is where HDB would normally offer them; our SBF guide explains how it works.

Resale. Peaks' flats cannot be resold until each owner has lived there ten years after completing the purchase. Elsewhere in Bukit Merah, young 4-room flats resold at a median of $990,000 in the year to June 2026, 43 of the 95 on Telok Blangah Street 31. A resale Prime or Plus flat carries HDB's income ceiling even without a grant; a resale Standard or Unclassified flat bought without the CPF Housing Grant has none.

If you held a number and let it go. HDB's rule for not selecting a flat when called: first-timer families are "placed in the second-timer category for a 1-year period", while singles and second-timers "will not be able to participate in any sales exercises for a 1-year period". It is waived when there are "10 or fewer BTO flats" left to choose from.

Ballot chances after a Prime miss. First-timer parents and married couples get three chances, other first-timer families two and second-timer families one. The extra chances HDB adds after repeated failures build up only from unsuccessful applications for Standard flats, and apply only to Standard flats, so an unsuccessful Prime application such as one for Peaks does not add to them. HDB's own advice, in June 2026, was to "consider applying to projects with lower application rates, such as those with an application rate of around one or lower".

HDB's preliminary November 2026 list has no Bukit Merah flats, under the Alexandra Peaks name or any other; until that changes, the town's door is its resale market.

Documents behind every figure. HDB's July 2025 launch release and its Annex A (flats, prices, sizes, waiting times, resale comparables, subsidy recovery, Table 3 after-grant prices and the income ladder); the Alexandra Peaks sales brochure (setting, name, facilities, transport, finishes), including its site-plan page, which we rendered and read directly because the text extract misses drawings; HDB's final July 2025 application rates; PropKaki's property_rules records for grants, the MOP, letting, income ceilings and ballot chances, each sourced to HDB's pages; HDB's rules on cancelling and on not selecting a flat; and PropKaki's analysis of HDB resale registrations in Bukit Merah from July 2025 to June 2026. Price per sqm, the loan and income figures, the after-grant prices and the gaps to HDB's comparables are our arithmetic on HDB's numbers. Comparisons with the other July 2025 projects and the later Bukit Merah launches use HDB's figures for those projects.

The name, handled narrowly. HDB's brochure says Alexandra Peaks shares its name with the neighbouring Blocks 139 to 141, sold in an earlier exercise. That sale is outside the launches we review and we have not transcribed it, so every figure here is for Blocks 138A and 138B, and we state no price, rate, wait or date for the earlier blocks.

Rows and prices that are not Peaks' alone. HDB published one Bukit Merah 3-room and one 4-room application-rate row for Alexandra Peaks and Alexandra Vista together, so Peaks' own rates cannot be separated out; we say so wherever we quote them. HDB's Table 3 prints one Bukit Merah Prime row for both projects: its 3-room start is Peaks', its 4-room start Vista's.

Deliberately absent from this review. No completion date or year: HDB published none, and adding a waiting time to a launch month is an inference. No resale price or rent for Alexandra Peaks, which has not been built or resold, and no forecast of what it may be worth. The town's resale figures describe other flats. Application rates describe a closed exercise and do not predict the next one, and HDB gives no reasons for them. Grant figures are illustrations on HDB's bands; your HFE letter decides your grant and loan. This is a desktop analysis of HDB's documents and data, not a site or showflat visit. It is not financial advice: verify every figure and rule with HDB before you commit.