Bishan Terraces BTO Review: October 2025's Smallest Batch, and the Exercise's Stiffest First-Timer 4-Room Queue

The October 2025 exercise has closed. Applications ran from 15 to 22 October 2025, and HDB's final rates are published. Nearly a year on, as of September 2026, many applicants may already have had their booking appointments. This review is for whoever still has a decision to make or a flat to plan around: a household holding a queue number or a booked unit, a household that missed out, and anyone who may one day buy a Bishan Terraces flat on resale and take on its Prime rules.

Our recommendation: decide on the next ten years, not on the 3.5. If your household expects to stay in Bishan for a decade after key collection, the number is worth using; if that decade is uncertain, hand it back, and do it before the Agreement for Lease, when stepping back costs least.

Of the four Prime projects HDB launched that October, Bishan Terraces came with the lowest subsidy recovery (10%, against 12% or 14% elsewhere), the shortest estimated wait (47 months, against 53 to 59) and the lowest top price for a 4-room ($735,000). On those three counts, no October 2025 Prime project asked less. The terms themselves are still Prime: a minimum occupation period (MOP) of ten years, no letting of the whole flat at any point, and 10% of the resale price or valuation, whichever is higher, paid to HDB when the flat is first sold.

• It suits a first-timer family holding a 4-room queue number who sees Bishan as the long-term home, since HDB's 47-month estimate comes before the ten-year clock even starts; a household content to let spare bedrooms at most, which a 3-room or 4-room owner may do with HDB's approval; and a buyer aged 55 or above considering the short-lease 2-room Flexi, in a precinct HDB designed "for community living across all ages", with a Kidney Dialysis Centre and a preschool planned within it.
• It does not suit a household that a job, a family change or a move abroad could force to sell inside the decade after key collection; one that needs keys in well under four years (HDB's four Shorter Waiting Time projects that October were estimated at 31 to 33 months); or a single counting on a lodger one day, since singles could apply here only for the 2-room Flexi, and a 2-room flat may not let even a bedroom.
• If you missed out, there is no dated Bishan launch to aim for: HDB's preliminary November 2026 list has no Bishan flats. HDB said in February 2026 that more projects at Lakeview and Shunfu will follow Lakeview Cascadia, Bishan's June 2026 Prime project, but has given no launch dates (see the last FAQ below).
• If you may buy one on resale after the MOP, you inherit the letting ban, face an income ceiling even without a grant, and start a ten-year MOP of your own.

The 3.5 tells you that many first-timer families wanted a 4-room in these two blocks. It cannot tell you whether the flat fits your next ten years, and that is the test we would apply before any appointment.

Bishan Terraces paired October 2025's lowest Prime clawback and shortest Prime wait with the exercise's smallest batch: take it if Bishan is home for good, and do not let the queue decide for you if it is not.

HDB's October 2025 launch release and Annex A; block numbers, heights and the rental count come from the sales brochure; the rate from HDB's October 2025 results page.

Where HDB puts it. In HDB's brochure the site is "bounded by Bishan Street 12 and Guangyang Secondary School", and the project takes its name from "its elevated communal spaces". At its centre is a courtyard with playgrounds, fitness corners and seating, joined by a 2nd-storey roof garden at the residential block, and a second landscaped roof garden, with fitness facilities and a community gardening area, on top of the multi-storey car park. Each block has a Community Living Room, and community events can be held at a sheltered precinct pavilion.

Two facilities that face outwards. HDB plans a Kidney Dialysis Centre and a 2-storey preschool that "will serve both residents and the wider neighbourhood", and says the public will be able to use the project's facilities. The brochure's unit-distribution page places the dialysis centre on the first storey of Block 100A. Expect a precinct used by people from beyond its two blocks, and note the brochure's general caution that residential blocks may be completed ahead of the proposed precinct facilities.

Transport, as the brochure has it. HDB says Bishan Terraces is "served by bus services linking the precinct directly to the nearby Bishan Bus Interchange and Bishan MRT Station on both the North-South Line and Circle Line". We give no walking or journey times; HDB encourages applicants to see the place before booking.

Where the 50 rental flats sit. The unit-distribution page shows the 50 rental flats in one stack in each block, stopping short of the upper floors. It is worth a look before you choose a unit.

A mix that fitted HDB's new joint ballot. Because Bishan Terraces offered 2-room Flexi and 3-room flats, it was open to the Family Care Scheme (Joint Balloting), new from October 2025, under which parents and their children could apply together for two units in the same BTO project.

Bishan Terraces is two towers around a courtyard, not a new estate: the town around it is the one Bishan households already know.

An application rate divides the applications from one household group by the flats reserved for that group. HDB's results page gives each town one line per flat type, and Bishan Terraces was the only Bishan project that October, so each line below is its alone; none is shared with another project.

HDB's final application rates, October 2025 (HDB). Where a cell shows a dash, that group could not apply for the flat type or HDB gave no figure. HDB's medians across the exercise: 1.9 for first-timer families and 15.9 for second-timer families (3-room and bigger flats), 7.4 for first-timer singles (2-room Flexi).

The 4-room: 3.5, the highest first-timer family rate on any 4-room row that October. That is about one flat for every 3.5 applications from first-timer families, nearly twice HDB's median. Next came Mount Pleasant Crest at 3.3, then the 3.1 that Berlayar Residences and Redhill Peaks shared on a single Bukit Merah row. Keep the scope in mind: this is a 4-room record. Our rates guide lists every October 2025 row, and one row for a larger flat type elsewhere in the exercise drew a higher first-timer family rate. Second-timer families, who are reserved far fewer flats and hold a single ballot chance, made 18.2 applications per flat.

The 3-room: 0.6 from first-timer families. In the same two blocks, first-timer families made fewer applications than there were 3-room flats reserved for them. Second-timer families were at 15.9, level with HDB's median. Among first-timer families, the October queue at Bishan Terraces was a 4-room queue: for the 3-room, they made fewer applications than there were flats set aside for them.

The 2-room Flexi: a queue of singles and seniors. Families barely applied, at 0.1 for first-timers and 0.6 for second-timers. Seniors made 2.1 applications per flat reserved for them, and first-timer singles 17.3, more than twice HDB's median for singles (more in the singles FAQ below).

Reading 3.5 without turning it into odds. About 20% of all applications come from households that applied in earlier launches, some of whom are yet to book a flat. HDB's shortlist can run to 200% of supply, so a queue number is a place in line; at 3.5, first-timer families' 4-room applications outnumbered the places even a full shortlist offers. Ballot chances also differ: three for first-timer parents and married couples, two for other first-timer families, one for second-timers. The bonus chances HDB grants after repeated misses (two or more) count Standard-flat applications only, so an unsuccessful Prime application here adds none.

The same blocks drew 3.5 first-timer family applications per 4-room flat and 0.6 per 3-room: for first-timer families, the queue was a 4-room queue.

A rate file counts applications and records no motives, and HDB offers none. What we can do is set out what HDB had published by the time the window opened on 15 October 2025, and test each item against the rest of the exercise. First, the four Prime projects side by side:

HDB's October 2025 launch release, Annex A and final rates (HDB). All four projects' brochures list living-room and bedroom flooring as optional, so these price ranges compare like for like on finishes.

Then each possible pull, with what weighs against it:

HDB's October 2025 launch release, Annex A and sales brochures.

HDB's comparison, briefly. HDB set the 90 sqm 4-room flats, on a new 99-year lease, against nearby resale flats of 100 to 103 sqm with roughly 72 years remaining on their leases, which sold for $780,000 to $939,000. The 26% is our arithmetic, midpoint against midpoint, and HDB itself tells buyers to allow for how its comparables differ from the new flats. The extra floor area flatters the gap; the shorter lease may understate it; HDB's figures cannot size either. For the 2-room Flexi and 3-room flats HDB found no comparable nearby at all.

A small batch, October's lowest Prime clawback and shortest Prime wait, and a Bishan address with buses to Bishan MRT Station were all on the page on 15 October 2025; HDB's figures cannot rank them, and neither can we.

HDB Annex A, October 2025, 99-year lease. Per sqm is our sum: the middle of each range divided by the size including the ledge. HDB's ranges leave out grants, any resale levy and additional payments, and the unit you pick sets your price. Our prices guide explains how HDB prices flat types.

Flooring and doors sit outside the price. HDB did not mark these prices as including floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings. The brochure lists what does come with the flat: floor and wall tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen and a WC suite, plus, in the 2-room Flexi, a sliding bedroom partition and a folding bathroom door. In the 3-room and 4-room flats, the living, dining and bedroom flooring, the bedroom and bathroom doors, and the wash basin and shower set are all marked optional. Take them up under the Optional Component Scheme (OCS) and HDB adds their cost to your flat's price; you choose before or at your booking appointment, and our renovation guide compares OCS with fitting out yourself.

Starting prices after grants, by HDB's sums.

Table 3 of HDB's October 2025 launch release; the Bishan Prime line is Bishan Terraces' alone. HDB labels these figures "illustrative", and what you receive turns on your income and eligibility. $120,000 is the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant's top band, for first-timer families on no more than $1,500 a month.

Grant by grant, at four incomes. HDB sizes the EHG on a household's average gross monthly income across the 12 months before its HFE application, and above $9,000 there is none. Taking the lowest price of each flat type:

EHG bands for first-timer families, from HDB. The full grant also requires the lease to last until the youngest buyer turns 95.

The ceilings October 2025 applicants were assessed on. A family buying a 4-room had to earn no more than $14,000 a month ($21,000 for an extended family), and a family buying a 99-year 2-room Flexi no more than $7,000. For HFE letters applied for from 24 August 2026, HDB has raised these to $16,000, $24,000 and $8,000; that matters to later buyers, including anyone buying one of these flats on resale, not to the October ballot.

Where HDB's ladder puts Bishan Terraces. Working from typical selling prices, HDB's October 2025 release placed a family earning $9,000, with a $5,000 EHG, within reach of "a 4-room Prime flat in Bishan Terraces, Redhill Peaks and Mount Pleasant Crest", and a family earning $7,000 within reach of "a 3-room flat in any project", with CPF servicing the mortgage "with little or no cash payment". Its line for a family earning $4,000 named no Bishan Terraces flat.

The loan. Borrowing HDB's maximum 75% over 25 years, tested at its 3.0% assessment rate against a 30% limit on income and ignoring grants: the cheapest 4-room ($543,000) means a monthly instalment of $1,931 and household income of $6,437; the dearest ($735,000), $2,614 and $8,714. The cheapest 3-room needs $4,837 a month in income, the cheapest 2-room Flexi $2,715. Grants lower the price you pay, and the rate HDB actually charges sits below the 3.0% it uses for the test.

Buyers aged 55 and above. The 2-room Flexi also came on leases of 15 to 45 years for buyers aged 55 and above, and the lease chosen must cover every buyer and spouse to at least age 95: the smaller flat from $76,000 to $98,000 on a 15-year lease up to $137,000 to $175,000 on a 45-year one, the larger from $96,000 to $122,000 up to $172,000 to $218,000. HDB's release added that eligible seniors right-sizing to a 2-room Flexi could apply for the enhanced Silver Housing Bonus of up to $40,000, an enhancement the release said would take effect in December 2025, and that seniors buying a 3-room in the exercise could receive a cash bonus of up to $30,000. Singles' prices are in the singles FAQ below.

HDB's own illustration put the cheapest 3-room at $318,000 after grants and the cheapest 4-room at $488,000; first-timer families applied at 0.6 per flat for the first and 3.5 for the second.

Classification is the half of the bargain that outlasts the price. At Bishan Terraces, flat type by flat type:

From HDB's pages on the classification framework, letting bedrooms, selling a flat and the income ceilings from 24 August 2026; the 10% from HDB's October 2025 launch release. Short-lease 2-room Flexi flats come with their own conditions; check them with HDB.

What 10% takes, per $100,000. HDB collects $10,000 on every $100,000 of the resale price or valuation, whichever is higher, or $100,000 on every $1,000,000. It falls due at the first sale, whenever that is; it does not lapse after the MOP or fade with the years. We make no estimate of what any Bishan Terraces flat might one day sell for. HDB set no lower subsidy recovery for a Prime BTO project from October 2025 to June 2026: Lakeview Cascadia also carries 10%, Redhill Peaks and Mount Pleasant Crest 12%, and Berlayar Residences and Berlayar Rise 14%.

The ten-year clock. The MOP starts at the legal completion of your purchase, not at booking, and counts only the years you actually live in the flat; our MOP guide sets out HDB's method. On HDB's median estimate of 47 months before completion, nearly fourteen years separate choosing your unit from the first day you could sell it on the open market.

Letting. Plan on never letting the whole flat: the ban does not expire, and it binds anyone who buys from you. A 3-room or 4-room owner may let spare bedrooms with HDB's say-so at any point, citizen or permanent resident. The 135 2-room Flexi flats cannot be let in any form. (By contrast, letting a whole Standard flat needs the owner to have met the MOP and to be a Singapore Citizen.)

Your eventual buyer's income test. A household buying a resale Prime flat faces an income ceiling even without a grant, unlike a buyer of a resale Standard or unclassified flat who takes no grant. For HFE letters from 24 August 2026, that ceiling is $16,000 a month for families and $24,000 for extended families (previously $14,000 and $21,000), and $8,000 for a single aged 35 or above buying a resale 2-room Prime flat (previously $7,000). HDB can revise the dollar limits; the requirement applies today. That buyer then starts a ten-year MOP of their own.

Where Bishan Terraces differs from October's other Prime projects is the 10% and the wait; the ten years, the letting ban and the buyer's income test are the same for all four.

The 47 months come from HDB's Annex A for the October 2025 launch. They are a median-to-median estimate, so your own selection date and your own block's completion can fall on either side. We do not add them to a launch date: HDB has published no completion date, and that sum would be our inference, not HDB's.

Set against the rest of the exercise:

• Prime projects: Bishan Terraces 47 months, Redhill Peaks 53, Berlayar Residences 56 and Mount Pleasant Crest 59. Our waiting-times guide shows every Prime BTO launch from October 2025 to June 2026 estimated at 47 months or more, so Bishan Terraces sits at the floor of the Prime range, not below it.
• The label does not set the wait: Teban Heights, a Standard project in Jurong East, was estimated at 48 months, and Oak Ville @ AMK, the Plus project, at 49.
• Shorter Waiting Time: HDB's four SWT projects that October, Ping Yi Court, Fernvale Plains, Yishun Glade and Chencharu Grove, were estimated at 31 to 33 months; HDB said their 3,294 flats made up more than a third of the flats launched.
• Bishan's next Prime project: Lakeview Cascadia, launched in June 2026, was estimated at 51 months.

After booking, you can track construction and HDB's current Probable Completion Date for your unit on MyHDB Page; that date is itself an estimate and can shift, as the waiting-times guide explains. The brochure also notes that residential blocks may be completed before the proposed precinct facilities, so that buyers get their keys sooner, which means some of the facilities it lists could open after the first households have moved in.

Forty-seven months was the quickest Prime estimate HDB gave that October, and it is still an estimate made at launch: budget your interim housing with room to spare.

The queue. The 135 2-room Flexi flats drew 596 applications in all. First-timer singles made 17.3 for each flat reserved for them; seniors 2.1; first-timer and second-timer families 0.1 and 0.6. For a single, that is about one flat for every 17.3 applications.

Why the ratio can run high in a small batch. HDB reserves a large share of each project's 2-room Flexi flats for seniors, with a minimum number of units, so a batch of 135 leaves comparatively few for singles and families; our rates guide sets out the quotas. That is arithmetic about supply, not a reason any single applied.

The price. Singles pay HDB's additional $15,000, folded into the price of the flat:

HDB's EHG (Singles) bands; none is paid above an income of $4,500.

The income ceiling. October 2025 applicants were assessed on a ceiling of $7,000 a month for a new 99-year 2-room Flexi. For HFE letters applied for from 24 August 2026, it is $8,000.

What the flat lets you do. A 2-room Flexi may not let even a spare bedroom, and as a Prime flat it can never be let whole, so it is a home and nothing else. It carries the same ten-year MOP and 10% on the first resale as the larger flats, and a single aged 35 or above who buys it from you is capped at $8,000 a month of income under the ceilings in force from 24 August 2026.

For a single, Bishan Terraces meant one flat type, a queue more than twice HDB's median, and a flat that can only ever be lived in.

• Lakeview Cascadia, June 2026. Bishan's next Prime project: 1,221 flats, a 51-month estimate, a 4-room range of $534,000 to $742,000, 10% subsidy recovery and no 3-room flats. Its window has closed; first-timer families made 3.9 applications per 4-room flat reserved for them (HDB), more than at Bishan Terraces.
• HDB's November 2026 list. HDB expects about 7,960 flats, in Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh and Yishun. None is in Bishan, and HDB names projects and classifications only at launch.
• HDB's Lakeview and Shunfu plan. In February 2026, HDB said further Bishan projects at Lakeview and Shunfu will follow Lakeview Cascadia; it has named no launch dates or classifications for them, and our launch schedule tracks what HDB announces.
• A Sale of Balance Flats round. An SBF exercise sells what earlier launches did not. February 2026's SBF offered 4,320 flats, and HDB had named no successor as at 18 September 2026. HDB has not said whether any Bishan Terraces flats will go unselected; the SBF guide explains how the exercise works.
• Buying resale in Bishan instead. From July 2025 to June 2026, Bishan's 3-room resales had a median price of $540,000 (57 sales), 4-room $790,000 (189) and 5-room $990,000 (97). None dated from a lease starting in 2015 or after, so these were older flats; they are other flats' prices, not a value for Bishan Terraces, which has never been sold. A resale Standard or unclassified flat bought without the CPF Housing Grant has no income ceiling.

If you can be flexible on flat type. Bishan Terraces' own rows show how far apart flat types can run in one project: 0.6 first-timer family applications per 3-room flat against 3.5 per 4-room. Rates describe a closed exercise and do not predict the next one, but they are a reason to read every flat type's row when a Bishan launch next comes. HDB's own advice, in its June 2026 release, is to "consider applying to projects with lower application rates, such as those with an application rate of around one or lower".

No extra ballot chance from this miss. HDB's bonus chances for first-timer families follow two or more unsuccessful applications for Standard flats, and a Prime miss does not count.

No Bishan BTO launch has a date yet. When one does, read its 3-room row as closely as its 4-room row: at Bishan Terraces, first-timer families' rates were 0.6 and 3.5.

The documents and data behind the figures. HDB's October 2025 launch release and its Annex A (flats, prices, sizes, the waiting time, HDB's resale comparables, its after-grant starting prices, its income ladder and the 10% subsidy recovery; the other Prime projects' subsidy-recovery rates come from their own launch releases); the Bishan Terraces sales brochure (setting, blocks, storeys, rental flats, facilities, transport, finishes and the unit-distribution page, read on the rendered PDF), and the other October 2025 Prime brochures only to confirm that their flooring was also optional; HDB's final application rates for October 2025, and for June 2026 for the Lakeview Cascadia figures given to readers who missed out; HDB's February 2026 statement on further Lakeview and Shunfu projects, as recorded in our launch schedule; 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 Bishan from July 2025 to June 2026. The price per square metre, the loan and income figures, the after-grant prices on HDB's bands and the 26% gap (midpoint to midpoint) are our arithmetic on HDB's figures.

How we treated the queue. HDB publishes how many applied, not why. We list what HDB had published by 15 October 2025 and weigh each item against the rest of the exercise; we state none of them as the cause, and we use nothing published after the application window to explain how applicants behaved.

Deliberately not claimed here. No completion date or year: HDB published none, and adding the waiting time to the launch month would be an inference. No resale price, rent or profit for Bishan Terraces, which is unbuilt and has never been resold; the Bishan resale figures and HDB's comparables describe other flats. No forecast of any kind. Application rates describe a closed exercise and do not predict the next one. Grant figures, HDB's and ours, are illustrations; 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 act.