Berlayar Rise BTO Review: 2026's Dearest BTO So Far, a 14% Clawback and a Waterfront Estate Still Being Built

As of September 2026 the June 2026 application window is closed and HDB has published its final rates for Berlayar Rise. That makes this review a decision aid for three readers: the household holding a queue number and weighing whether, and which unit, to book; the one that missed out and wants to know what comes next in Bukit Merah; and the future buyer who might one day take over a Prime flat here, rules and all.

Our recommendation: book Berlayar Rise if the flat itself, and the Circle Line station HDB puts next to it, are worth your unit's price to you as they stand today. Count the parks, green corridors and waterfront in HDB's brochure as a possible bonus, never as part of what you are paying for; if the unit only makes sense once that estate exists, let the queue number go.

The case for booking is what is already real. HDB places the project "next to Telok Blangah MRT Station", lists Labrador Park station, also on the Circle Line, among those that will serve residents, and points them to VivoCity and Harbourfront Library. Its 4-room price list sits 30% below the resale flats HDB chose as comparables, and its 3-room list 32% below, midpoint to midpoint, and those comparables are young flats whose leases have about 91 years to run. Both of HDB's waiting-time figures, 49/54 months, are shorter than the 55 months HDB gave Redhill Peaks in February 2026 or the 56 it gave Berlayar Residences.

The case against is everything you fix today. The 4-room list, $592,000 to $810,000 before grants, reaches the highest price on HDB's February and June 2026 BTO price lists. When the flat is first sold, HDB takes 14% of the resale price, or of the valuation if that is higher: the joint-highest rate it set for any Prime BTO project from October 2025 to June 2026. HDB's own income ladder for the June exercise leaves the Berlayar Rise 4-room off every rung. First-timer families put in 3.3 applications for each 4-room flat in their share. And the estate that gives the address its promise is, in HDB's own brochure, mostly future tense.

• A good fit: a first-timer family holding a 3-room or 4-room queue number that expects to live here well past the ten-year MOP, can finance its chosen unit (HDB's full 75% loan needs a household income of about $7,018 a month on the cheapest 4-room and $9,603 on the dearest), travels on the Circle Line and runs one car at most.
• A poor fit: anyone who may need to sell within a decade of moving in, or who might ever want to let the whole flat; a family counting on CPF to carry a 4-room with little or no cash, which HDB's ladder does not offer here at any of the family incomes it lists ($4,000, $7,000 and $9,000 a month); a single hoping for a lodger (no bedroom in a 2-room Flexi may be let); and anyone who wants a finished neighbourhood around the front door at key collection.

Berlayar Rise sells a real flat by a real station at the highest BTO prices of 2026 so far; the waterfront estate around it is the part you cannot inspect before you commit.

Sources: HDB's June 2026 launch release and Annex A; blocks and storeys from HDB's sales brochure; HDB's final June 2026 application rates.

What HDB is building. The brochure describes six residential blocks "ranging from 33 to 49 storeys in height", placed "next to Telok Blangah MRT Station and bounded by Berlayar Street and Berlayar Drive". The name looks back to the area's seafaring past: 'berlayar' is Malay for 'sailing', after Batu Berlayar, the granite outcrop that once guided traders to Singapore. Inside the precinct HDB lists a 3-storey preschool, a residents' network centre, nature-themed playgrounds, fitness corners and a hardcourt. The car park block, six storeys high, "will house" a supermarket, an eating house, restaurants, cafes and shops at ground level, with a roof garden and fitness facilities on top, and selected blocks have sky terraces. Anyone, resident or not, will be able to use the project's facilities, the brochure adds, sky terraces and roof gardens included.

Buses and two Circle Line stations. Residents "will be served by bus services", HDB says, and by Labrador Park and Telok Blangah stations on the Circle Line, which it says connect to nearby towns.

The largest BTO launch of 2026 so far, and Bukit Merah's only project that June. At 1,976 flats, Berlayar Rise was the biggest launch in HDB's June 2026 exercise and larger than any BTO launch in February 2026. It was also Bukit Merah's sole project that June, so every rate HDB printed for the town that month belongs to Berlayar Rise alone. Half its flats, 988, are 4-rooms.

Yes, at the top of its range, and even at the bottom of its 4-room list within the June 2026 exercise. These are HDB's indicative prices on a 99-year lease, before any grant, the resale levy or HDB's "additional payments (if any)". Actual prices depend on the unit.

HDB Annex A, June 2026. Price per sqm is our arithmetic: each range's midpoint over the floor area with the air-con ledge.

Across both 2026 price lists. No BTO flat on HDB's February or June 2026 price lists was priced above $810,000, the top of Berlayar Rise's 4-room range. Its other flat types top their own lists too: no 3-room in either BTO exercise went above its $591,000, and no 2-room Flexi above its $406,000. At the midpoint, its 4-room ($7,789 per sqm) and 3-room ($7,657) cost more per square metre than any other February or June 2026 BTO launch of the same flat type. The ranges by flat type and classification are in our 2026 prices guide.

Inside the June exercise. Every 4-room list in the exercise, dearest first:

HDB Annex A, June 2026.

Even the cheapest Berlayar Rise 3-room ($435,000) was priced above the dearest 4-room at Sembawang Brook ($428,000).

Inside Bukit Merah. Set beside the town's other Prime BTO launches from October 2025, Berlayar Rise is dearer at both ends of the 4-room list:

HDB Annex A and HDB's final rates (October 2025, February 2026, June 2026).

Against Redhill Peaks, its Prime neighbour in the same town, Berlayar Rise costs more at both ends of the 4-room list, asks two percentage points more of your first resale, and drew a longer first-timer family 4-room queue than Redhill Peaks' February 2026 launch (3.3 against 2.2). What it offers back is time: both of HDB's figures for Berlayar Rise are shorter than Redhill Peaks' 55 months in February, and the lower one, 49, is shorter than its 53 in October. Bukit Merah also had two Prime projects in July 2025, Alexandra Peaks and Alexandra Vista; we have not compared their prices or rates.

Floors and doors are extra. Berlayar Rise's prices carry no "~" in HDB's Annex A, the mark HDB uses when floors, doors and sanitary fittings are in the price. The brochure lists what does come: tiled floors and walls in the kitchen and bathrooms and a water closet suite, and in the 2-room Flexi a sliding bedroom partition plus a bathroom door. Flooring for the living room and bedrooms, internal doors and the other sanitary fittings come either through HDB's Optional Component Scheme (OCS), an opt-in package whose cost HDB adds to the flat's price, or through your own renovation. Budget for flooring and internal doors on top of the price list; our renovation guide explains what the OCS covers and when you choose it.

At the top of its list Berlayar Rise is the dearest BTO flat of 2026 so far; at the bottom, its 4-room still starts above every other 4-room in the June exercise.

HDB's Table 3 for Berlayar Rise. In its June 2026 launch release, HDB printed a starting price for each Berlayar Rise flat type after the EHG, the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant, it assumed:

HDB, June 2026 launch release, Table 3. HDB calls these after-grant prices "illustrative": the grant a household actually gets turns on its income and eligibility.

The $127,000 assumes $120,000 of EHG, the most a first-timer family can receive; a single can receive at most $60,000, so it is a family's figure. HDB's exercise-wide headline, a Standard 4-room from $222,000 after grants, describes other projects: at Berlayar Rise, HDB's own 4-room starting point after grants is $537,000.

The ladder. The same release sets out "Housing Options for Different Household Incomes", which HDB bases on typical selling prices, with CPF paying the loan instalments and "little or no cash" needed:

• Families on $4,000 a month (EHG $80,000): a 3-room or 4-room in a Standard project.
• Families on $7,000 (EHG $30,000): a 3-room in any project, Berlayar Rise included, or a Standard 4-room or 5-room.
• Families on $9,000 (EHG $5,000): a 3-room anywhere; a 4-room in a Standard or Plus project or at Lakeview Cascadia, the exercise's other Prime project; or a Standard 5-room.
• Singles on $3,500 (EHG $15,000): a Standard 2-room Flexi. On $4,500 (EHG $2,500): a 2-room Flexi in a Standard or Plus project, or at Lakeview Cascadia.

No Berlayar Rise 4-room appears on the families' rungs, and no Berlayar Rise 2-room Flexi on the singles'. That is not a bar: a household earning more than $9,000, where the EHG stops, can still buy one. Read by omission, HDB's list suggests that, at the incomes its grant bands cover, a typically priced Berlayar Rise 4-room or 2-room Flexi is not one that CPF can service with little or no cash. The 3-room is the Berlayar Rise flat HDB's ladder does reach.

The loan side of the sum. HDB lends up to 75% over 25 years, sizes the loan at its 3.0% interest-rate floor and holds instalments to 30% of income:

Our arithmetic on HDB's loan rules, on prices before grants. The rate HDB actually charges is below the 3.0% floor used to size the loan.

Borrowing HDB's full 75% on the dearest 4-room takes about $9,603 a month, an income at which a family receives no EHG at all.

After the EHG at four incomes. Each flat type's cheapest unit, less the EHG a first-timer family would receive:

The EHG bands are HDB's, set by a household's average gross monthly income across the 12 months before it applies for an HFE letter; there is no EHG above $9,000. The 2-room Flexi's $8,000 income ceiling is the one HDB applies to HFE applications made on or after 24 August 2026 (it was $7,000 when the June 2026 exercise ran).

Buying alone at 35 or over. HDB adds $15,000 to the price for a first-timer single, so the entry price of a 2-room Flexi rises to $262,000. Less $40,000 of EHG (Singles) for someone earning $2,000 a month, that is $222,000; on $3,000 it is $237,000 (EHG $25,000), and on $4,000, $252,000 (EHG $10,000).

Seniors' short leases. From age 55, a buyer can choose a 2-room Flexi lease of 15 to 45 years, in five-year steps, provided it lasts until all buyers and spouses reach 95: $83,000 to $114,000 for the smaller Type 1 on 15 years, rising to $177,000 to $243,000 for the larger Type 2 on 45 years.

All of these are illustrations on HDB's bands and rules; the grant and loan you actually receive come from your HFE letter.

Subsidy recovery is the share of your first resale that HDB takes back for the extra subsidy a Prime flat carries. At Berlayar Rise HDB's share is 14%, applied to whichever is higher: the resale price or the valuation.

• In dollars: $14,000 of every $100,000 the flat sells or is valued at, and $140,000 of every $1,000,000.
• When it is due: on the flat's first sale, whenever that happens. Selling at the end of the MOP or decades later makes no difference; the 14% does not fade with time.
• How big it gets: we make no guess at a sale price. What matters is that HDB set the percentage at launch, while the dollar amount follows whatever the flat eventually sells or is valued at.

The Prime scale, October 2025 to June 2026:

HDB's launch releases. A Standard flat carries no subsidy recovery.

HDB's two Berlayar projects to date carry the top rate on that scale; Redhill Peaks, in the same town, carries 12%, and Lakeview Cascadia, the other Prime project in the June 2026 exercise, 10%.

The rest of the Prime package:

Sources: HDB's page on its Standard, Plus and Prime classification, its bedroom-letting eligibility rules and its August 2026 income-ceiling announcement.

For contrast, a Standard flat can be let whole after its MOP, if the owner is a Singapore Citizen and HDB approves; and someone buying a Standard flat on the resale market without a grant faces no income ceiling. HDB raised the ceilings in August 2026 and may revise them again; what does not change is that your buyer has to qualify. Our MOP guide shows how HDB counts the ten years, which pause while the owners are not living in the flat.

Put HDB's 49/54-month waiting time and the ten-year MOP end to end and a Berlayar Rise flat is a commitment of well over a decade from the day you choose your unit: the MOP clock starts only when your own purchase is legally completed, at key collection, and pauses while you are not living in the flat.

HDB fixed the 14% at launch; what it comes to depends only on the first sale's price or valuation, and no length of ownership makes it go away.

HDB works out each rate by dividing a household group's applications by the flats it reserved for that group. It is a measure of crowding in one queue, not a chance of success. Three things sit behind every figure: about 20% of applications are from earlier applicants, some of whom have yet to book a flat; shortlists can reach 200% of the supply, so numbers deep in the queue may never be called; and three ballot chances go to families in HDB's First-Timer (Parents & Married Couples) category, FT(PMC) for short, two to other first-timer families and one to second-timer families.

HDB's final application rates for June 2026 (HDB). Each row is Berlayar Rise's alone. "–": the group is not eligible, or HDB gave no rate.

4-room. First-timer families filed 3.3 applications per flat HDB held for them, more than twice the exercise-wide median of 1.4 that HDB reported for first-timer families applying for flats of 3 rooms or more. Only Woodgrove Acres (4.1) and Lakeview Cascadia (3.9) drew higher first-timer family 4-room rates that June. Second-timer families faced 23.9, against a median of 14.3.

3-room. First-timer families came in at 1.3, just under that median of 1.4. Second-timer families again faced 23.9, the same as on the 4-room row.

2-room Flexi. Families barely applied (0.1 first-timer, 0.4 second-timer). The contest was among seniors, at 2.6, and first-timer singles, at 7.8, exactly HDB's median for singles across the June exercise.

The top price did not come with a short queue: the dearest BTO 4-room list of 2026 so far still drew 5,285 applications for 988 flats. HDB gives no reason for any project's rate, and neither do we. If your 4-room number is far down the queue, remember that HDB shortlists beyond the supply, so it may not be reached. And these are final figures for a closed exercise: they do not tell you how crowded HDB's next Berlayar launch will be. The rates guide has every row from October 2025 to June 2026.

2026's dearest BTO 4-room list so far still drew 5,285 applications for 988 flats, a first-timer family rate more than twice the exercise median.

Read the Berlayar Rise brochure for its verbs. The flats are on sale now; much of what surrounds them is described as what will be.

• Parks and green corridors. "Berlayar estate is part of the Greater Southern Waterfront", HDB writes, "with up to 10 hectares (20%) of the estate set aside for parks and open spaces". Green corridors "will weave through the estate", and blocks across it "will feature staggered heights" that step down towards the green spaces.
• Roads still being laid. HDB's location plan draws Berlayar Street and Berlayar Drive, the two roads that bound the site, as dashed roads marked "(U/C)", which its legend explains as under construction, and labels plots around the site "Proposed Park". HDB's site plan also marks "public housing (U/C)" across Berlayar Street and plots beside and below the project as "reserved for future high-rise residential development", so building work next door may still be going on after you move in.
• Food centre, shops and supermarket. The nearby Telok Blangah estate "will feature a new food centre and market at Telok Blangah Beacon", which the brochure describes as still to be completed. Within the project, the car park block "will house" the supermarket and eating house, and HDB's site-plan notes warn that the housing blocks may be finished before the precinct's planned facilities, so that buyers can collect their keys sooner.
• A car-lite precinct. "Berlayar Rise will be a car-lite precinct." HDB says season parking will be reduced and restricted to residents, with a resident's first car given priority over second and later cars, which pay a higher season-parking rate, and that visitors will have limited short-term lots.

What already exists, on HDB's account: Telok Blangah and Labrador Park MRT stations on the Circle Line, shown as open stations on HDB's plan; VivoCity and Harbourfront Library, which residents "can also visit"; and the schools HDB says families "can consider" in the town, Blangah Rise Primary School, CHIJ St. Theresa's Convent, Radin Mas Primary School and CHIJ (Kellock). HDB names them as options; it says nothing about distance or admission.

HDB's own caution covers all of it: everything its plans show is "subject to change and planning approval".

HDB's two waiting times. HDB printed two figures for Berlayar Rise: 49/54 months, which is about 4 years and 1 month, or 4 years and 6 months. We report both as printed and would plan around the longer. HDB measures its waiting time between two medians, the median selection month and the median month HDB projects for finishing the blocks, so it is not a date. HDB has not published a completion date for Berlayar Rise, and we will not turn a launch month plus a wait into a year for it. Nor does the project carry HDB's Shorter Waiting Time label, which needs an estimate under 36 months. Among Bukit Merah's Prime launches, HDB estimated Redhill Peaks at 53 months (October 2025) and 55 (February 2026) and Berlayar Residences at 56; in the June 2026 exercise, Lakeview Cascadia was at 51. Our guide to BTO waiting times lists every project, and after booking, MyHDB Page shows your own block's progress.

The station next door is the part of Berlayar Rise's address that already exists; the parks, the corridors and the Beacon's food centre are HDB's plans, and HDB itself says plans can change.

Berlayar Rise is unbuilt and has never changed hands, so there is no resale price or rent of its own to report. Every price below belongs to someone else's flat.

HDB's chosen yardsticks. Alongside its price list, HDB published what selected nearby resale flats had sold for, as comparables:

HDB Annex A. The gap is our arithmetic: how far the midpoint of Berlayar Rise's range sits below the midpoint of the comparables', the same method as our prices guide. HDB itself says the comparables and the new flats differ in their attributes and that buyers should allow for it. The 2-room Flexi has no HDB comparable.

Berlayar Rise's lists therefore sit below HDB's resale comparables. Those comparables are themselves young, with about 91 years of their leases left against a new flat's 99. At a Prime project, HDB takes part of the subsidy in a new flat's price back through the 14%. Resist netting one percentage against the other, though. The 30% compares the midpoints of two price ranges today; the 14% will be charged on a future resale price, or the valuation if higher, at a first sale at least ten years after your purchase completes. Different bases, different dates.

The town's resales in the year to June 2026, by flat type:

Our analysis of the HDB resale records for Bukit Merah, July 2025 to June 2026: other flats, not Berlayar Rise.

One street, the biggest share of the young sales. Bukit Merah's $990,000 median for young 4-rooms leans on Telok Blangah Street 31: 43 of the 95 resales with a lease from 2015 were there, with Boon Tiong Road and Henderson Road next at 16 each. HDB's location plan for Berlayar Rise shows Telok Blangah Street 31 on the far side of Telok Blangah Road, beyond Telok Blangah Drive. The young 3-room median ($745,000 on 44 resales) leans on the same street, with 19. The all-age 3-room median, $435,000, is exactly the lowest Berlayar Rise 3-room price, but only 44 of those 323 resales had a lease from 2015; most were older flats with less lease left. Bukit Merah sold 32 2-room flats in the year, just 1 of them young, and Berlayar Rise sells no 5-room, so those rows say little here.

What none of these medians can do is price a Berlayar Rise flat. None can be sold until ten years after its purchase completes, and its first sale owes HDB 14%.

Bukit Merah's young-flat median leans on existing flats across Telok Blangah Road: a guide to the resale route today, not to what a Berlayar Rise flat might one day fetch.

• November 2026. About 7,960 flats are on HDB's preliminary list for its next exercise, spread over six towns, and Bukit Merah is not one of them. Project names and classifications come only on launch day. The launch schedule guide follows HDB's announcements, including its plans for more Berlayar projects, none of them dated yet.
• HDB's balance-flat sales. The Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise offers flats that earlier BTO launches did not sell. February 2026's round offered 4,320 flats, and HDB had not announced another by 18 September 2026. Whether any Berlayar Rise flats end up there, HDB has not said; the SBF guide covers how the exercise runs.
• Resale. In the year to June 2026, young 4-room flats in Bukit Merah changed hands at a $990,000 median, with 43 of the 95 sales on Telok Blangah Street 31. Buy a Plus or Prime flat on the resale market and your household must pass an income test, grant or no grant; a Standard resale flat bought without a grant comes with no such test.
• Your ballot chances. HDB adds a ballot chance for a first-timer family whose BTO applications for Standard flats have failed twice or more, for each later Standard application, topping out at five chances for FT(PMC) families and four for any other first-timer family. A failed Berlayar Rise application, for a Prime flat, earns nothing towards it.

If a shorter queue matters more to you than the town, HDB's own advice is to look at projects with application rates "of around one or lower". In June 2026 no Bukit Merah 4-room row came near that; the Sembawang 4-room row, which Sembawang Brook and Sembawang Portico share, stood at 0.6, and the Ang Mo Kio row for Kebun Baru Breeze and Kebun Baru Ridge at 1.4. Those are rates from a closed exercise and do not predict November's.

A Bukit Merah address is not on HDB's November list; if the queue matters more than the town, HDB's advice points to rates near one.

What this review rests on. HDB's June 2026 launch release and its Annex A (flats, prices, sizes, the two waiting-time figures, resale comparables, subsidy recovery, HDB's after-grant starting prices and its "Housing Options for Different Household Incomes"); HDB's sales brochure for Berlayar Rise, including its location plan, site-plan notes and its car-lite, finishes and OCS pages; HDB's final application rates for June 2026, and for the Bukit Merah launches of October 2025 and February 2026; PropKaki's property_rules records for grants, the MOP, letting, income ceilings, ballot chances and the booking and cancellation rules, each sourced to HDB's pages; 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 at each income, the gaps to HDB's comparables and the subsidy recovery in dollars are our arithmetic on HDB's numbers.

How 'dearest' is scoped. "2026's dearest BTO flat so far" means the highest indicative price on HDB's BTO price lists for its February and June 2026 exercises (the November 2026 exercise had not launched as of September 2026): $810,000, the top of Berlayar Rise's 4-room range. It says nothing about any unit's final price, or about value.

The two waiting times. HDB printed two figures for Berlayar Rise, 49/54 months. We report both as printed and do not average them.

What we chose not to say. 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 Berlayar Rise, 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. Grant figures are illustrations on HDB's bands, and your HFE letter decides your grant and loan. What the brochure says about the estate is HDB's current planning intent, which HDB says may change. 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 book.