Clementi Emerald BTO Review: A Prime Flat With Fittings Included, a 34-Month Wait and July 2025's Highest BTO Clawback

The July 2025 exercise has closed. Applications ran from 23 to 30 July 2025. HDB ran it as a BTO and SBF exercise: 5,547 BTO flats in 8 projects alongside 4,662 SBF units, and applicants chose one or the other, not both. The final rates are published, and fourteen months on, most queue numbers will have been called. This review, as of September 2026, is for households who have booked a Clementi Emerald flat or are about to sign for one, those who missed out and are weighing Clementi's next chance, and anyone who may one day buy one of these flats on resale.

Our recommendation: book, or keep, a Clementi Emerald flat if what your household is short of is time, and if you expect to live in Clementi for well over a decade after the keys. If it was the 4-room price that drew you, look again: like for like, the 4-room was no cheaper than the Alexandra pair's, and HDB set the clawback a point higher. The 3-room is the exception: it started below every other July 2025 Prime BTO 3-room.

What came alongside the 12%, set against July 2025's three other Prime projects:

• Time. HDB's 34-month estimate was the shortest of any July 2025 BTO project, and no Prime BTO project HDB launched from October 2025 to June 2026 came in under 47 months.
• Fittings. Floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings are in the price. The gap between HDB's prices with and without them is $8,000 for a 4-room, $6,000 for a 3-room and $3,000 for a 2-room Flexi.
• The lowest July 2025 Prime 3-room start. From $388,000, below every other July 2025 Prime BTO 3-room even before the fittings are taken out.

What did not:

• A cheaper 4-room. Without the fittings, Clementi Emerald's 4-room ran from $554,000 to $772,000, inside Alexandra Vista's $547,000 to $775,000.
• Lighter rules. The 10-year MOP, the lifelong ban on letting the whole flat and the resale buyer's income ceiling are the same at every Prime project. Only the percentage differs, and here it is the highest HDB set for a July 2025 BTO project.

Who it is for:

• Right for a first-timer family paying rent or living apart while it waits, for whom a shorter estimate is worth money it can count; a household that would rather move in without first laying floors and hanging doors; and a senior right-sizing into a short-lease 2-room Flexi, which comes with the same floors, doors and sanitary fittings, grab bars, and senior-friendly options under the Optional Component Scheme (OCS).
• Wrong for a household that may need to sell within ten years of collecting the keys, or to let the whole flat; anyone choosing a Prime 4-room mainly for its price; or a single counting on a lodger, since the 2-room Flexi, the only flat type here with a singles' rate, may not let even a bedroom.
• If Clementi Emerald passed you by, there is no Clementi BTO date to aim for: HDB's preliminary November 2026 list has no Clementi flats, and HDB launched no other Clementi BTO project from October 2024 to June 2026. The last FAQ covers the SBF and resale routes.
• For a later resale buyer, once the first owners have met their MOP: you inherit the letting ban, face an income ceiling even without a grant, and start a 10-year MOP of your own.

Clementi Emerald is the Prime flat for a household whose problem is the calendar; for a household whose problem is the price of a 4-room, July 2025's highest BTO clawback is the wrong way to solve it.

HDB's July 2025 launch release and Annex A; blocks, heights and the flat mix by block from the sales brochure, whose site plan we read on the rendered page; the rate from HDB's July 2025 results page.

What the brochure puts inside the site. HDB calls Clementi Emerald "a nature-inspired, health-centric living space". The 7-storey multi-storey car park carries a rooftop garden with fitness stations and a jogging track, and also houses a mini-mart, a preschool and an eating house. A central courtyard garden is the main open space, with children's playgrounds, fitness corners for adults and the elderly, and sheltered resting areas. HDB says the facilities will be open to the public. The brochure also lists separate chutes for recyclable waste, regenerative lifts, bicycle stands, parking spaces ready for future electric-vehicle charging, and smart-enabled homes.

Getting about, as HDB describes it. Residents "will be served by bus services along Clementi Ave 6 and Commonwealth Ave West, as well as Clementi MRT Station on the East-West Line". We give no walking or journey times; HDB encourages applicants to see the place for themselves.

The site plan's own table and labels. The brochure's text gives no storey count, but the table on its site plan does: 40 storeys for Blocks 437A, 437B and 438A, and 34 for Block 438B. The same table shows Block 437B holding only 4-room flats, and all 66 of the smaller 2-room Flexi flats in Block 438B. On the land between the blocks and Commonwealth Avenue West, the plan marks an existing substation and a polyclinic under construction, and it draws the MRT line running along the avenue beyond them. A general note in the brochure says housing projects near roads and railways may face disamenities such as higher noise levels; it names none specific to Clementi Emerald, and the site plan shows where each stack sits.

The facilities may follow the keys. The brochure notes that residential blocks may be completed ahead of the proposed precinct facilities, so that buyers can collect their keys sooner. In a project sold on its short wait, some of the car-park amenities could open after the first households have moved in.

Four towers around a courtyard, with the shop, the eating house, the preschool and the roof garden stacked on the car park; on the Commonwealth Avenue West side, the site plan shows an existing substation, a polyclinic site and the MRT line.

Comparing Prime prices in July 2025 takes one adjustment. Clementi Emerald's list prices include floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings; the other three Prime projects sold their flats without them, leaving those items to HDB's opt-in OCS or to the buyer's own renovation. Read straight off the list, Clementi Emerald's top 4-room price, $780,000, was the highest BTO 4-room price in the July 2025 exercise. Take out the $8,000 of fittings, as HDB's own second price does, and it is $772,000: below Alexandra Vista's $775,000 and Toa Payoh Ascent's $777,000.

HDB's July 2025 launch release (subsidy recovery), Annex A (prices, the without-fittings prices and the waits) and final application rates. HDB gives Alexandra Peaks and Alexandra Vista one Bukit Merah rate row for their 4-room flats; Clementi Emerald's and Toa Payoh Ascent's rows are their own.

Where the 4-room lands. Without the fittings, Clementi Emerald's range starts $6,000 below Alexandra Peaks' and ends $1,000 above it, and it lies wholly inside Alexandra Vista's. On price the three are one band; Toa Payoh Ascent's range starts and ends above it.

The 3-room is where Clementi Emerald is clearly cheaper. Its 3-room list ran from $388,000 to $512,000, or $382,000 to $506,000 without the fittings. Both ends of that like-for-like range sit below the matching ends of every other July 2025 Prime BTO 3-room, and the listed start does too.

The wait is where it stands alone. HDB estimated 34 months here, against 41 at Toa Payoh Ascent, 47 at Alexandra Vista and 56 at Alexandra Peaks. Beyond July 2025, our waiting-times guide shows every Prime launch from October 2025 to June 2026 estimated at 47 months or more. From July 2025 to June 2026, Clementi Emerald was the only Prime BTO project inside HDB's Shorter Waiting Time line.

So do the fittings. In HDB's later BTO launches, fittings in the price came only with the Shorter Waiting Time projects, and none of those was Prime (our renovation guide lists them). That makes Clementi Emerald the only Prime BTO project from July 2025 to June 2026 sold with floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings in the price.

And the extra point. 12% against 11% means $1,000 more to HDB on every $100,000 of the resale price or valuation, whichever is higher, at the first sale. HDB's release says it would "increase the additional subsidies" for all four Prime projects in this exercise and set their recovery at 11% and 12%. None of HDB's figures we hold, the price list included, puts a dollar amount on that extra subsidy, so the list cannot tell you what the extra point pays for. What it can show is what came alongside it.

Set out like for like, a Clementi Emerald 4-room costs what an Alexandra 4-room costs; it differs in the calendar, the fittings and the percentage.

HDB gives no completion date for Clementi Emerald. Its Annex A estimate, 34 months, or 2 years and 10 months, is measured from the median month in which buyers select their flats to the median month in which HDB projects the four blocks to be completed. Your own selection month, and your own block, can fall on either side of those medians. Adding 34 months to the launch date would produce a date HDB has not published, so we do not.

HDB's own words. The brochure says Clementi Emerald "will have a shorter waiting time of less than 3 years". The launch release counted "1,396 Shorter Waiting Time (SWT) flats at Bangkit Breeze and Clementi Emerald", the exercise's two SWT projects, estimated at 35 and 34 months. Sembawang Beacon, at 36 months, sat exactly on the three-year line, and HDB listed it apart, as a project that "will have a waiting time of 3 years".

Against the Prime field.

• July 2025: Clementi Emerald 34 months, Toa Payoh Ascent 41, Alexandra Vista 47, Alexandra Peaks 56.
• October 2025 to June 2026: every Prime launch was estimated at 47 months or more, as our waiting-times guide shows.

After booking. MyHDB Page shows your block's building progress and HDB's current Probable Completion Date, which is itself an estimate and can move; the waiting-times guide explains how to read it. The brochure's note that blocks may be finished before the precinct facilities applies here too.

Then the ten years. The 10-year MOP runs from the legal completion of your purchase and counts only the time you actually live in the flat (our MOP guide sets out HDB's method). So the earliest open-market sale comes after ten years of living in the flat, counted from key collection, which itself follows HDB's 34-month median estimate: a short first stretch, then the full Prime term.

Thirty-four months is what makes Clementi Emerald unusual among Prime projects, and it is still HDB's launch-day median: hold your interim housing plans loosely around it.

HDB's brochure lists what is in each flat before you book it. At Clementi Emerald:

The sales brochure's "Finishes and Fittings" and "General Specifications" pages. The price line is HDB's Annex A list price less its price without floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings; the gap is the same at both ends of each range.

Against HDB's later flats sold with fittings. For HDB's nine Shorter Waiting Time projects from October 2025 to June 2026, the same bundle added $8,000 to $9,000 to a 4-room and $6,000 to $7,000 to a 3-room, according to our renovation guide. Clementi Emerald's gaps sit at the low end of those ranges.

What is still yours to fit. The General Specifications for the 99-year flats list a clothes drying rack, locksets and the sanitary fittings above, but no kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, water heater, lighting or window grilles. Budget for a kitchen and lights at least. The brochure's OCS section speaks to one group: seniors buying a short-lease 2-room Flexi can opt in to senior-friendly and other fittings, with the cost added to the flat's price. Their specification lists kitchen cabinets, a wardrobe, window grilles, a water heater and lighting among the options, and grab bars come as standard.

If you would rather have a different floor. HDB's renovation rules let you lay vinyl or timber over the existing finishes without a permit, as long as nothing is hacked and no platform or screed goes down; replacing the floor tiles needs HDB's permit, and bathroom and toilet tiles must stay for the block's first 3 years. The renovation guide sets out the rules. The fittings are in the price either way, so a plan to replace them means paying twice.

Why it matters more here. In a basic flat, laying floors and hanging doors is the contractor's first job after key collection. At Clementi Emerald that job is done, which suits the household that chose the project for its shorter wait.

At Clementi Emerald the floors, doors and taps are already in HDB's price; the kitchen cabinets and the lights are still yours to fit.

HDB Annex A, July 2025, 99-year lease; these prices include floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings. Per sqm is our arithmetic, the middle of each range over the size including the air-con ledge, worked on those fittings-included prices, so it reads a little high against a project sold without them. HDB's ranges leave out grants, the resale levy and any additional payments, and the unit you pick sets your price. Our prices guide explains how HDB prices each flat type.

HDB's after-grant sums for Clementi.

Table 3 of HDB's July 2025 launch release; the Clementi Prime row covers Clementi Emerald alone. HDB calls these figures illustrative: the grant you receive depends on your income and eligibility. $120,000 is the top band of the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant (EHG), for first-timer families earning up to $1,500 a month.

The EHG, income by income. The EHG follows a household's average gross monthly income over the 12 months before its HFE application, and stops above $9,000. On the cheapest unit of each type:

HDB's EHG bands for first-timer families. The full grant needs the lease to cover the youngest buyer to age 95.

HDB's own ladder. Working from typical selling prices, HDB's release put a family earning $7,000 a month, with a $30,000 EHG, within reach of "a 3-room Standard or Prime flat in any of the projects", and a family earning $9,000, with $5,000, within reach of a 3-room or 4-room Prime flat in any of them, with CPF servicing the loan "with little or no cash payment". Its line for a family earning $4,000 named Standard flats only.

The ceilings July 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 those to $16,000, $24,000 and $8,000. That matters to anyone who buys one of these flats later, not to the July 2025 ballot.

The loan. Borrowing HDB's maximum 75% over 25 years, tested at its 3.0% assessment floor against a 30% cap on income, and before any grant: the cheapest 4-room ($562,000) means a monthly instalment of $1,999 and a household income of $6,663; the dearest ($780,000), $2,774 and $9,247. The cheapest 3-room needs $4,600 a month in income, the cheapest 2-room Flexi $2,537. Grants lower the price, and the rate HDB actually charges sits below the 3.0% it uses for the test.

Singles. A first-timer single aged 35 or above pays HDB's additional $15,000, folded into the price, which takes the cheapest 2-room Flexi to $229,000. After the EHG (Singles), that is $189,000 on an income of $2,000 a month, $204,000 on $3,000 and $219,000 on $4,000; above $4,500 there is no EHG (Singles). July 2025 applicants were assessed on a $7,000 ceiling for a 99-year 2-room Flexi; for HFE letters from 24 August 2026 it is $8,000.

Seniors on a short lease. The 2-room Flexi also came on short leases, which must cover every buyer and spouse to at least age 95:

HDB Annex A, July 2025; leases of 20, 30 and 40 years were offered too.

HDB's own illustration puts the cheapest Clementi Emerald 4-room at $507,000 after a $55,000 grant, floors and doors already in; on $9,000 a month, the rung where HDB's ladder first reaches a 4-room Prime flat, the EHG is $5,000 and that flat costs $557,000.

An application rate is the number of applications from one household group divided by the flats HDB set aside for that group. HDB prints one row per town and flat type, and Clementi Emerald was Clementi's only BTO project in the exercise, so none of these rows is shared with another project.

HDB's final application rates, July 2025 (HDB). A dash means the group could not apply for that flat type or HDB printed no rate. HDB's medians across the exercise's BTO rows (the SBF is not included): 1.4 for first-timer families and 11.7 for second-timer families (3-room and bigger), and 8.8 for first-timer singles (2-room Flexi).

Clementi's 4-room row. First-timer families sent in 3.1 applications for each 4-room flat reserved for them. Among July 2025's Prime projects, that put Clementi Emerald between the 2.2 on the single Bukit Merah row shared by Alexandra Peaks and Alexandra Vista and Toa Payoh Ascent's 6.4. Second-timer families made 19.0 applications per flat set aside for them. From this exercise HDB had also raised the second-timer family quota for 3-room and bigger flats by 5 percentage points.

Clementi's 3-room row. First-timer families sent in about as many applications as there were 3-room flats set aside for them. Second-timer families made 15.1.

Clementi's 2-room Flexi row. Families hardly applied: 0.2 applications per flat from first-timer families and 0.7 from second-timers. Seniors made 3.8 per flat set aside for them, above HDB's BTO median of 2.7, and first-timer singles 8.8, level with HDB's median for singles across the exercise's BTO 2-room Flexi rows.

What HDB's rate file leaves out. HDB records how many applied, not why. Applicants could see the shortest BTO wait in the exercise, the fittings, the 12% and a Clementi address served by the East-West Line; the rates cannot rank those, or show that any of them moved anyone. About 20% of applications come from households that applied in earlier launches and may still be waiting to book. HDB shortlists up to 200% of the supply; at 3.1 applications per flat, first-timer families' 4-room applications outnumbered even a shortlist of twice their share of the flats. Under HDB's current rules, ballot chances differ by group too: three for first-timer parents and married couples, two for other first-timer families, one for second-timers. A rate is not a probability, and our rates guide explains why a closed exercise's rates do not predict the next one.

First-timer families' 4-room rate was about three times their 3-room rate in the same project: at Clementi Emerald, read your own flat type's row, not the project's name.

The 12% among the year's Prime rates. HDB sets each Prime project's rate at launch. Across the Prime BTO projects it launched from July 2025 to June 2026:

HDB's launch releases. Within the July 2025 BTO exercise, 12% was the highest; across the twelve months, the two Berlayar projects carried more.

What 12% takes. $12,000 on every $100,000 of the resale price or valuation, whichever is higher, or $120,000 on every $1,000,000, paid when the flat is first sold. It does not lapse after the MOP or shrink with the years. We make no estimate of what any Clementi Emerald flat might one day sell for; the percentage applies to whatever that figure is.

Ten years before any sale. No open-market sale until the 10-year MOP is met, counted from the legal completion of your purchase and only for the time you live in the flat (MOP guide).

Letting. Never the whole flat, MOP or no MOP, and the ban binds every later owner too. A 3-room or 4-room owner may let spare bedrooms with HDB's approval, with no MOP to wait out, whether a citizen or a permanent resident. A 2-room Flexi may not let even a bedroom, so the 222 2-room Flexi flats here can never be let, whole or by the bedroom. (Letting a whole Standard flat, by contrast, needs the owner to have met the MOP and to be a Singapore Citizen.)

The next owner's hurdles. A household buying a resale Prime flat faces an income ceiling even without a grant, which a buyer of a resale Standard flat who takes no grant does not. 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 revises the figures from time to time; the test itself stays with the flat. Your buyer then starts a 10-year MOP of their own.

Weighing the point. The extra point is $1,000 on every $100,000 of a sale that cannot come until the 10-year MOP is met. The fittings, which HDB priced at $8,000 in a 4-room, and the shorter wait arrive at the start. Which side of that matters more depends on how long your household means to stay.

HDB set the percentage at Clementi Emerald a point above July 2025's other Prime projects; the ten years, the letting ban and the buyer's income test are the Prime standard, no heavier and no lighter.

November 2026, the next BTO round. About 7,960 flats in Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh and Yishun, on HDB's preliminary list. None is in Clementi, and HDB names projects and classifications only at launch. Clementi Emerald was also Clementi's only BTO project from October 2024 to June 2026. Our launch schedule tracks what HDB has announced.

Leftover flats through an SBF. An SBF sells flats left over from earlier launches. February 2026's offered 4,320 flats, and as at 18 September 2026 HDB had announced no successor. HDB has not said whether any Clementi Emerald flats will go unselected. When HDB runs the two together, as it did in July 2025, you apply under one or the other, not both; the SBF guide explains how the exercise works.

HDB's own yardstick. HDB set Clementi Emerald's flats against these nearby resale flats:

HDB Annex A, July 2025; the gap is our arithmetic. HDB found no comparable nearby for the 2-room Flexi, and says the differences between its comparables and the new flats "should be taken into account". These comparables are young flats of much the same size, so floor area distorts the gap less than it can elsewhere; they are still other flats, with a shorter lease, a different age and their own floors and views.

Clementi's resale market, July 2025 to June 2026.

PropKaki analysis of HDB resale registrations. These are other flats: Clementi Emerald has never been sold and has no resale price.

The street column matters more than the median here. The young 4-room figure describes Clementi Avenue 3 above all, 46 of its 63 resales; 10 were on Clementi Avenue 6, the avenue that bounds Clementi Emerald, in other blocks. The young 3-room median rests on 8 resales. A resale Standard or unclassified flat bought without the CPF Housing Grant has no income ceiling; a resale Prime flat has one.

Your next application. Under HDB's current rules, First-Timer (Parents & Married Couples) families get three ballot chances, other first-timer families two, and second-timer families one. The extra chances for repeated misses follow two or more unsuccessful applications for Standard flats, so a miss at a Prime project such as Clementi Emerald adds none. HDB's own advice is to consider projects "with an application rate of around one or lower"; the rates of a closed exercise do not predict the next one, but read every flat type's row when you choose.

Clementi has no BTO date to aim for yet; its young flats resell on the open market, at medians set mostly on Clementi Avenue 3.

Documents and data we drew on. HDB's July 2025 launch release (the BTO and SBF totals, the Shorter Waiting Time wording, the 12% and the other Prime projects' rates, Table 3's after-grant starting prices and the income ladder) and its Annex A (flats, sizes, prices with and without floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings, the waiting times, the short-lease prices and HDB's resale comparables, for Clementi Emerald and the other July 2025 projects); the Clementi Emerald sales brochure (setting, facilities, transport, finishes and specifications), with its site plan read on the rendered PDF page for the storey counts, the flat mix by block and the land around the site; HDB's final application rates for July 2025; PropKaki's property_rules records, each sourced to an HDB page, for grants, the MOP, letting, income ceilings, ballot chances and the booking and cancellation rules; and PropKaki's analysis of HDB resale registrations in Clementi from July 2025 to June 2026. For Prime launches after July 2025, the waits and the fittings come from our waiting-times and renovation guides, and the subsidy recovery rates from HDB's releases.

Sums that are ours. The like-for-like comparison sets Clementi Emerald's own without-fittings prices, which HDB printed, against the other Prime projects' list prices, which exclude those items. The fittings gap, the price per square metre, the loan and income figures, the after-grant prices on HDB's EHG bands, the dollars per $100,000 and the comparables gaps (midpoint to midpoint) are our arithmetic on HDB's figures.

Claims we left out, and why. No completion date or year: HDB published none, and adding the waiting time to the launch month would be our inference. No resale price, rent or profit for Clementi Emerald, which is unbuilt and has never been sold; the Clementi resale figures and HDB's comparables describe other flats. No forecast of any kind, and no reason for any queue: HDB records how many applied, not why. Application rates describe a closed exercise and do not predict the next. 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: check every figure and rule with HDB before you act.