Tanjong Rhu Parc Front BTO Review: February 2025's Most Crowded BTO Queues, 9% Back to HDB and 203 Rental Flats in the Mix

Applications for Tanjong Rhu Parc Front closed at 11:59pm on 17 February 2025. Nineteen months on, as of September 2026, the ballot is long settled and most queue numbers have probably been called, so this review is written for the people with a decision still ahead of them: owners-to-be working out what they have committed to, anyone who might one day buy one of these flats from its first owner, and households who missed out and are weighing what Kallang/Whampoa offers next.

Our recommendation: a Tanjong Rhu Parc Front 3-room or 4-room is worth keeping for a long stay, on the lowest Prime clawback HDB set from February 2025 to June 2026; a 2-room Flexi only if you will never need to let it; and February 2025's crowd is no sign of value.

• Staying for the long haul in a 3-room or 4-room: keep it. The Prime terms here are the usual ones, with one lighter number: HDB takes 9% of the first sale, against 10% to 14% at every other Prime BTO project it launched from February 2025 to June 2026. On HDB's February 2025 BTO price list, the 4-room range also started and ended below that of Stirling Horizon, the only Plus project among the five BTO projects.
• Holding a 2-room Flexi: think hardest. 261 of the 812 flats are 2-room Flexi flats. A 1-room or 2-room flat may not let out a bedroom at all, and no Prime flat may ever be let whole, so a 99-year 2-room Flexi here can be lived in and, once the ten-year MOP is over, sold, but never let. That suits an owner who will never need the rent; it does not suit a household that may outgrow the flat before the MOP ends.
• Facing a possible move within the decade: look elsewhere. Until the MOP ends there is no open-market sale, and letting cannot bridge the gap. Before the keys, walking away costs the option fee, or 5% of the price after you sign the Agreement for Lease, and then a year before you can apply again.
• Missed out in February 2025: do not count on a rerun soon. HDB launched no other Kallang/Whampoa BTO project from February 2025 to June 2026, and its preliminary list for November 2026 has none (the last FAQ has the options).
• Planning to buy one from its first owner: once that owner's MOP is over, you take on the letting ban, an income ceiling that applies even without a grant, and a ten-year MOP of your own.

The crowd tells you that many households wanted these flats in February 2025. It cannot tell you whether a Prime flat fits your next ten years, and it says nothing about any future sale price: we make no such estimate.

For a settled 3-room or 4-room household, Tanjong Rhu Parc Front is Prime at the lowest clawback HDB set on any Prime BTO flat from February 2025 to June 2026; for a 2-room Flexi owner, it is a home that can never earn rent.

HDB's February 2025 launch release and its Annex A; blocks, flat mix, rental flats and finishes from the sales brochure. Floor areas include the air-con ledge.

Tanjong Rhu, as HDB describes it. The brochure says Tanjong Rhu Parc Front "is bounded by the existing Tanjong Rhu Road, Kallang Paya Lebar Expressway (underground), and East Coast Parkway", and that its landscape design keeps "harmonious connections between the Geylang River to the north, the Singapore Strait to the south, and the Singapore Sports Hub that is within". The name, HDB adds, "reflects its proximity to Tanjong Rhu Road and the nearby recreational parks". HDB gives no distance to the river, the sea or the Sports Hub, and we add none.

Courtyards, a preschool and a roof garden on the car park. A preschool on the first floor of the multi-storey car park opens into "a vibrant green courtyard that directly connects to a children's playground"; fitness corners sit in the main precinct green and the central courtyards; there is a residents' network centre; and the 7-storey car park carries a roof garden. HDB says the project's facilities "will be accessible to the public", and notes in the brochure that the flats may be finished before the precinct facilities are.

Rail and bus, as HDB puts it. Residents "will be served by bus services and Tanjong Rhu MRT Station on the Thomson-East Coast Line that connects to nearby towns". We give no walking or journey times.

Beyond the site boundary. HDB's site plan, which we checked on the rendered brochure page, marks land reserved for future high-rise development beyond the precinct's edges, and public housing under construction across Tanjong Rhu Road. The plan also labels an electrical substation across Tanjong Rhu Road and an existing utility outside the precinct's western edge. HDB says nothing about what will be built on the reserved land or when. The brochure names no disamenity specific to this project; its site plan asks applicants to see the site for themselves before booking, and owners-to-be can do the same.

HDB describes the setting through the Geylang River, the Singapore Strait and the Sports Hub without a single measurement, and its site plan leaves the reserved land around the precinct undescribed.

An application rate is HDB's count of applications from one household group divided by the flats set aside for that group. HDB prints one row per town and flat type, and Tanjong Rhu Parc Front was the only Kallang/Whampoa BTO project in the February 2025 exercise, so each row below belongs to it alone; none is shared with another project.

HDB's figures at the close of applications, 11:59pm on 17 February 2025. HDB's own results page for this exercise no longer shows them; we read them from the Internet Archive's copy of that page, captured on 18 February 2025. A dash means the group could not apply or HDB printed no rate. HDB's medians for the February 2025 BTO exercise: 1.1 for first-timer families and 16.3 for second-timer families (3-room and bigger), and 5.2 for first-timer singles (2-room Flexi). Our rates guide explains how quotas and ballot chances work.

4-room: 3.7 from first-timer families. Roughly 3.7 first-timer family applications chased each 4-room flat reserved for that group: more than three times HDB's median, and nearly twice the 1.9 at Stirling Horizon, the next-highest February 2025 BTO 4-room row. Of the four 4-room rows HDB published for the exercise, one per town, Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's had the fewest flats and the most applications: 2,658, more than any other row in the February 2025 BTO results. Second-timer families, who are set aside far fewer flats, made 44.6 applications per flat.

3-room: first-timer families at 1.0. In the same blocks, first-timer families made about as many applications as there were 3-room flats reserved for them, a lower rate than on Chencharu Vines' 3-room row in Yishun. Second-timer families, at 38.0, recorded the highest second-timer 3-room rate of February 2025's BTO exercise.

2-room Flexi: families stayed away, singles and seniors did not. First-timer and second-timer families each made 0.2 applications per flat. First-timer singles made 12.5, more than twice HDB's median, and seniors 3.3: for both groups, the highest rate among the exercise's five BTO projects. The prices singles and seniors paid are in the prices FAQ below.

What a rate of 3.7 does and does not mean. From this exercise, HDB shortlisted applicants "up to 200% of the total flat supply, instead of up to 300%". The 4-room's 2,658 applications were more than five times its 464 flats, beyond even a 200% shortlist, so a share of applicants received no queue number at all. HDB also puts about 20% of applications down to households that applied in earlier launches, some still waiting to book a flat, and ballot chances differ by household type. A rate measures how crowded a queue was, not any one household's chance.

Of the four 4-room rows in HDB's February 2025 BTO results, Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's had the fewest flats, 464, and drew the most applications, 2,658.

HDB's February 2025 launch release, Annex A and figures at the close of applications. None of the five projects included floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings in its price, so the ranges compare like for like. HDB prints Woodlands North Verge's wait as two figures, 47 and 48 months, without saying which blocks take which.

On paper when the window opened. Everything in that table except the rates was in HDB's launch documents on 10 February 2025, and several items set Tanjong Rhu Parc Front apart:

• It was Kallang/Whampoa's only BTO project in the exercise, and the only Prime one of the five.
• Its 4-room range started and topped out below Stirling Horizon's, with a shorter estimate (48 months against 55) and a clawback one point higher (9% against 8%).
• The brochure points to Tanjong Rhu MRT Station on the Thomson-East Coast Line, and to the Geylang River, the Singapore Strait and the Sports Hub.
• The 4-room range sat 37% below HDB's own resale comparables, midpoint to midpoint (our arithmetic; the last FAQ has the detail).
• HDB's income ladder, in the same release, put a Prime 3-room within reach of a family earning $7,000 and "any of the Standard, Plus or Prime flats" within reach of one earning $9,000 (the prices FAQ below has the wording).

What the numbers cannot tell you. HDB counts applications and never says why a queue formed. Any of these may have drawn applicants, or none of them; the rate file cannot rank them, and we do not. Price and crowd did not line up neatly in either direction: Chencharu Vines' 4-room flats started at $316,000 with a 37-month estimate, and first-timer families on the Yishun 4-room row it shares with Chencharu Green applied at 1.1 per flat; on the 3-room, though, Chencharu Vines' own row drew more first-timer family applications per flat than Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's 1.0.

In February 2025's BTO list, Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's Prime 4-room cost less than the Plus one and carried the shorter estimate; HDB's figures record the crowd that followed, not the reason for it.

HDB Annex A, February 2025, 99-year lease. Per sqm is our arithmetic: the middle of each range over the floor area including the ledge. HDB's ranges exclude grants, any resale levy and additional payments, and the unit you choose sets your price. Our prices guide sets each flat type in context.

Tiles and a WC come with the flat; the rest is extra. HDB did not mark these prices as including floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings. What the brochure lists for every flat: floor and wall tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen and a WC suite, plus a sliding bedroom partition and a folding bathroom door in the 2-room Flexi. The rest came through HDB's Optional Component Scheme (OCS), which buyers chose to join or not: "If you opt-in for OCS, the cost of the optional components will be added to the price of the flat." Owners who did not opt in fit out the rest themselves after the keys; our renovation guide compares the two routes.

HDB's Table 1 row for Kallang/Whampoa Prime.

Table 1 of HDB's February 2025 launch release; the Kallang/Whampoa Prime line is Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's alone. HDB calls these "illustrative": "The actual grant amount received will depend on the household's income and eligibility." $120,000 is the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant's top band, for first-timer families with household incomes of $1,500 a month or less.

Four incomes, four grants. On the cheapest unit of each type, for first-timer families (no EHG above $9,000 a month):

HDB's EHG bands, on average gross monthly household income over the 12 months before the HFE application. The full grant needs the lease to cover the youngest buyer to age 95.

Ceilings then and now. February 2025 applicants were assessed on $14,000 a month for a family buying a 4-room ($21,000 for an extended family) and $7,000 for a 99-year 2-room Flexi. 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 who buys one of these flats on resale, not to the February 2025 ballot.

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

Borrowing the full 75%. Taking HDB's maximum loan over 25 years, tested at HDB's 3.0% assessment floor against a 30% cap on income and before grants: the cheapest 4-room, $548,000, means a $1,949 monthly instalment and a household income of $6,497; the dearest, $727,000, means $2,586 and $8,619. The cheapest 3-room needs $4,730 a month and the cheapest 2-room Flexi $2,501. HDB charges less than the 3.0% it uses for the test, and grants lower the price.

Buying alone, or at 55 and over. A first-timer single aged 35 or above pays HDB's additional $15,000, folded into the price, so the cheapest 2-room Flexi becomes $226,000: $186,000 after an EHG (Singles) of $40,000 on an income of $2,000 a month, $201,000 after $25,000 on $3,000, and $216,000 after $10,000 on $4,000 (no EHG above $4,500). Buyers aged 55 and above could also take the 2-room Flexi on a short lease, which must last until every buyer and spouse is at least 95:

HDB Annex A, February 2025.

HDB's own sums took a Tanjong Rhu Parc Front 4-room from $548,000 to $493,000; at the top of the 4-room range, the loan test alone asks for a household income of $8,619 a month.

Classification is the part of the purchase that outlasts both the queue and the price. HDB fixed the number at launch: "For this sales exercise, the subsidy recovery percentages will be 8% for the Plus project and 9% for the Prime project."

9% in dollars, and when it falls due. HDB collects $9,000 on every $100,000 of the resale price or HDB's valuation, taking the higher of the two, or $90,000 on every $1,000,000. It falls due on the flat's first sale, whenever that happens: it does not shrink or lapse in the years after the MOP. We make no estimate of what any flat here might sell for.

Lowest on HDB's Prime list. No Prime BTO project HDB launched from February 2025 to June 2026 carried less:

HDB's launch releases, February 2025 to June 2026. Stirling Horizon, February 2025's Plus project, carried 8%.

Four years, then ten. The MOP counts from the legal completion of your purchase, not from booking, and only the time you actually live in the flat counts; our MOP guide sets out HDB's method. HDB's 48-month estimate comes first, so choosing a unit here meant signing up for about four years of waiting and then ten of living in before an open-market sale is possible.

Letting at Tanjong Rhu Parc Front, flat type by flat type. The whole flat: never, not after the MOP and not by any later owner. A spare bedroom in a 3-room or 4-room: allowed with HDB's approval, with no MOP to wait out, and the owner may be a citizen or a permanent resident. The 2-room Flexi: not even a bedroom, because 1-room and 2-room flats may not let one. For contrast, the owner of a Standard flat may let it whole once the MOP is met, provided the owner is a Singapore Citizen.

Whoever buys from the first owner. A household buying a resale Prime flat faces an income ceiling even without a grant, which a buyer of a resale Standard or unclassified flat without a grant does not. For HFE letters from 24 August 2026 that 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). That buyer inherits the letting ban and starts a ten-year MOP of their own. HDB sets separate conditions for the short-lease 2-room Flexi; ask HDB before relying on this section for one.

The 9% is the one Prime term HDB set lower at Tanjong Rhu Parc Front than at any other Prime BTO project from February 2025 to June 2026; the MOP, the letting ban and the next buyer's income test match theirs.

The 48 months come from HDB's Annex A. They are a median-to-median estimate, so your own selection month and your own block's completion can fall either side of it. We do not add them to a launch date: HDB published none, and the sum would be our inference, not HDB's.

• Against HDB's line. Shorter Waiting Time means under 36 months, and 48 is a year beyond it. HDB's launch release said "8 out of 10 BTO flats have waiting times of 4 years or less"; Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's 48 months, exactly four years, falls within that.
• Against the exercise. Chencharu Vines 37 months and Chencharu Green 38, which HDB called "just over 3 years"; Woodlands North Verge, printed as 47/48, with no word on which blocks take which; Stirling Horizon 55.
• Once you have booked. Owners-to-be can follow building progress and HDB's current Probable Completion Date on MyHDB Page; HDB says that date "may vary depending on the construction progress". The brochure's note that flats may be finished before the precinct facilities means some of what it lists could open after the first households move in.
• Collecting the keys. HDB sets deadlines for taking possession after its notice and for moving in after collecting the keys, and months not lived in during that first stretch do not count towards the MOP. Our waiting-times guide covers each step.

Tanjong Rhu Parc Front has an estimate, not a date: once you have booked, the Probable Completion Date on MyHDB Page is the figure to watch, not the 48 months.

HDB's two sentences. The brochure: "This project features 4 residential blocks comprising 812 units of 2-room Flexi, 3-room, and 4-room flats", and "1 of the blocks will also include 203 rental flats."

Block 31B on HDB's site plan. Read on the rendered brochure page, the plan's block table lists 31A, 32A and 33A with flats for sale and no rental flats, and a fourth block, 31B, with 1-room and 2-room rental flats and nothing for sale. The unit-distribution page likewise shows flats for sale in 31A, 32A and 33A only. The 812 in Annex A and the flats behind each application rate are all flats for sale; the rental flats sit outside them.

Not the only February 2025 project with rental flats. HDB's brochures also put 12 rental flats in one block at Stirling Horizon, and said 4 blocks at Woodlands North Verge "will include some rental flats".

Where we stop. HDB says no more than this, and we state no effect of the rental block on the flats for sale, on the precinct or on any future sale. If it weighs on your choice, the site plan in HDB's brochure shows where Block 31B sits, and HDB encourages a visit.

Tanjong Rhu Parc Front has two 203s: the larger 2-room Flexi flats for sale across its three sale blocks, and the rental flats HDB placed in Block 31B.

• No Kallang/Whampoa flats in November 2026. HDB expects about 7,960 flats in Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh and Yishun (HDB, 23 August 2026). None is in Kallang/Whampoa, and HDB names projects and classifications only at launch; our launch schedule tracks what it announces.
• Earlier launches in the town. Before this one, HDB's October 2024 exercise offered Crawford Heights (Prime) and Kallang View and Towner Breeze (both Plus). Those windows closed long ago; each has its own PropKaki review.
• Leftover flats, if any. The last SBF, in February 2026, offered 4,320 flats, and our SBF guide shows it included a Kallang/Whampoa 4-room row mixing flats launched before October 2024 with Plus and Prime ones. As at 18 September 2026 HDB had announced no SBF since, and it has not said whether any Tanjong Rhu Parc Front flats will go unselected.
• A miss at Tanjong Rhu Parc Front adds no ballot chance. HDB's additional ballot chances follow two or more unsuccessful BTO applications for Standard flats (five chances in total at most for First-Timer (Parents & Married Couples) families; four for other first-timer families), so a Prime application does not count towards them. 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".

Kallang/Whampoa resales, July 2025 to June 2026. These are other flats' prices, recorded after Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's window had closed: context, not a value for a project that is unbuilt and has never been sold.

PropKaki analysis of HDB resale registrations in Kallang/Whampoa. A median follows wherever the young flats happen to be, so read the street column first.

What HDB compared them with. At launch HDB set the new flats against nearby resale flats of its choosing: 3-rooms of 70 sqm that sold for $760,000 to $838,000, and 4-rooms of 88-95 sqm at $960,000 to $1,050,000, each with about 91 years of lease left. Midpoint to midpoint, that puts Tanjong Rhu Parc Front's 3-room range 43% and its 4-room range 37% below HDB's resale comparables; HDB found none for the 2-room Flexi. HDB's own caution: "The differences in attributes between the resale comparables and the new flats should be taken into account when making a comparison."

If you buy resale instead. A resale Standard or unclassified flat bought with no CPF Housing Grant has no income ceiling; a resale Plus or Prime flat, including one of these once its first owner's MOP is over, has one even without a grant.

HDB's preliminary November 2026 list has no Kallang/Whampoa BTO, and the young resale flats behind its $1,050,000 4-room median mostly sit on St. George's Lane, McNair Road and Bendemeer Road, not on Tanjong Rhu Road.

Where the figures come from. HDB's February 2025 launch release and its Annex A: flats, floor areas, prices, the 48-month estimate, HDB's resale comparables, its after-grant starting prices (Table 1), its income ladder, the 8% and 9% subsidy recovery and the move to a 200% shortlist. The Tanjong Rhu Parc Front sales brochure: the setting, blocks, flat mix, rental flats, facilities, transport and finishes, with the site plan's block table read on the rendered PDF, since the text extraction misses it, and the unit-distribution page checked the same way. HDB's application rates as at the close of applications, read as the note under the rates table explains. The other February 2025 projects' figures come from the same HDB documents, and the other Prime projects' subsidy recovery from their own launch releases. PropKaki's property_rules records, each sourced to HDB, give the EHG bands, the singles' $15,000, the MOP, the letting and resale rules, income ceilings, ballot chances, the option fee and cancellation. The resale table is PropKaki's analysis of HDB resale registrations in Kallang/Whampoa from July 2025 to June 2026. Price per square metre, the loan and income figures, the after-grant prices at four incomes, the per-$100,000 sums and the midpoint gaps to HDB's comparables are our arithmetic on HDB's figures.

How we handled the queue and the rental block. HDB publishes how many applied, not why. We set out what HDB had published at launch and state none of it as a cause, and nothing published after the application window is used to explain how applicants behaved; the resale figures postdate the window and appear only as context. The rental flats are described in HDB's words and from its site plan, and we claim no effect from them.

What this review of Tanjong Rhu Parc Front does not claim. 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 Tanjong Rhu Parc Front, which is unbuilt and has never been resold; the town's resale figures and HDB's comparables describe other flats. No forecast of any kind. No storey count (HDB prints it in the site plan's block table, linked above), distance or walking time (a visit is the place to judge those). 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.