Woodgrove Acres BTO Review: 2026's Cheapest BTO Flat So Far, and June's Stiffest First-Timer 4-Room Queue

If you hold a Woodgrove Acres queue number that reaches the flats, use it: the ballot was the hard part, and you have already cleared it. The June 2026 exercise closed on 24 June, HDB has published its final application rates, and as of September 2026 the open questions are yours: whether to book, which flat, and where to go if the ballot went the other way.

The case, in four lines:

• The lowest BTO prices of 2026 so far, at the small end of the list. The 40 sqm 2-room Flexi from $137,000 was the lowest 99-year price in HDB's February and June 2026 BTO launches, and $46,000 for a 15-year lease on the smaller 2-room Flexi was the lowest short-lease price. By our arithmetic, Woodgrove's 3-room was also the cheapest 3-room per square metre in those two BTO launches.
• June's busiest first-timer family queues. In every flat type Woodgrove sold, its first-timer family rate was the highest of the June 2026 BTO exercise: 0.8 for a 2-room Flexi, 2.3 for a 3-room, 4.1 for a 4-room and 2.5 for a 5-room, against HDB's median of 1.4 for 3-room and bigger flats. All four rows are Woodgrove's own; HDB shared none of them with another project.
• A wide discount on Standard terms. The 4-room's range, $353,000 to $437,000, sits 44% below HDB's resale comparables, midpoint to midpoint. As a Standard flat it carries a 5-year minimum occupation period (MOP), no subsidy recovery when you sell, and the option to let the whole flat once the MOP is met, if the owner is a Singapore Citizen and HDB approves.
• Two costs the price list leaves out. HDB estimates a 42-month wait, outside its Shorter Waiting Time label, and the prices exclude floor finishes and most internal doors, which you add through HDB's opt-in Optional Component Scheme (OCS) or your own renovation.

Our recommendation, reader by reader.

• A first-timer family whose number is inside the supply: book, even a 4-room at the top of its range, if Woodlands is where you want to live and your HFE letter covers the price. At $437,000, the dearest Woodgrove 4-room still sits below the bottom of HDB's own 4-room resale comparables ($650,000 to $750,000), flats HDB picked that differ in age and attributes; and a first-timer family that does not select a flat is placed in the second-timer category for a year.
• A family holding a 5-room number: book with open eyes. The 5-room is Woodgrove's dearest flat per square metre ($4,664 at the midpoint) and has its narrowest gap to HDB's comparables (34%, midpoint to midpoint), though it is still a new Standard flat well below them.
• A number beyond the supply: plan as though it will not be reached. HDB shortlists up to 200% of the flats, and at 4.1 first-timer family applications per 4-room flat, more families applied than even a full 200% shortlist would hold.
• A single who lost the 2-room Flexi ballot: the batch was small, which leaves singles few flats once seniors have their share; HDB's figures cannot say how much the price drew applicants as well (see the singles section below).
• A family that missed out and wants Woodlands: HDB's preliminary list for November 2026 has no Woodlands flats, so the realistic routes are a November town or the Woodlands resale market.

HDB priced Woodgrove within reach of a wide band of first-timer families and let the ballot decide who got a flat; if it decided in your favour, don't hand the number back.

From HDB's June 2026 launch release and its Annex A price list, the Woodgrove Acres sales brochure and HDB's final June 2026 application rates.

What the brochure promises. HDB says the name "reflects its abundant greenery", with landscaped gardens connected by "meandering pathways that weave through the estate". The facilities are pitched at every age: children's playgrounds, fitness corners for adults and elderly residents, and precinct pavilions. The multi-storey car park carries a rooftop garden with more fitness equipment, sheltered spaces and viewing areas, and a preschool at ground level. HDB adds that the project's facilities will be open to the public, and that residential blocks may be completed ahead of the precinct facilities. Its eco-features include separate chutes for recyclables, regenerative lifts and bicycle stands.

Transport, as HDB describes it. In HDB's words, residents "can access the bus service to Woodlands Bus Interchange, as well as Woodlands MRT Station on the North-South and Thomson-East Coast lines". No walking times appear in the brochure, so none appear here.

The rental flats. HDB is building 261 rental flats in 4 of the 5 blocks, 1 of them entirely rental, and its floor plans show rental flats on the same floors as flats for sale in some blocks. If that matters to you either way, the brochure's unit distribution charts show where each type sits, and HDB itself encourages applicants to visit the site before booking.

A green precinct built for families and elderly residents alike, sharing its blocks with rental flats: read the unit plans alongside the price list, not after it.

HDB's Annex A, June 2026, 99-year lease; the price per square metre is PropKaki arithmetic on the midpoint of each range, over the floor area including the air-con ledge. Prices exclude grants, the resale levy and any additional payments, and the unit you pick sets the actual price.

The records, and their limits. Across HDB's February and June 2026 BTO price lists (see our BTO prices guide):

• Cheapest 99-year BTO flat: Woodgrove's 40 sqm 2-room Flexi, from $137,000. A single pays $15,000 more, built into the price.
• Cheapest BTO short lease: the same flat type on a 15-year lease, from $46,000. Short leases are only for buyers aged 55 and above, and the lease must last every buyer and spouse to at least age 95, so the shortest terms suit only the oldest buyers. At the other end, a 45-year lease costs $82,000 to $102,000 for the smaller flat and $98,000 to $126,000 for the larger.
• Cheapest 3-room per square metre: $4,239 at the midpoint, the lowest of any 3-room in those two BTO launches, in any classification. Sembawang's June 3-rooms came close and, unlike Woodgrove's, include floor finishes.

Where the records stop. The 4-room, the flat with Woodgrove's stiffest first-timer family queue, is no price leader. In June alone, Sembawang Brook's 4-room started at $302,000 and Sembawang Portico's at $320,000, both with floor finishes, internal doors and sanitary fittings in the price; Woodgrove's starts at $353,000 without them. The 5-room, at $4,664 per square metre, sits near the top of the Standard 5-room range in HDB's February and June 2026 BTO launches.

Bare floors, by design. The brochure lists what every flat comes with: floor and wall tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen, and a WC; the 2-room Flexi adds a bedroom sliding partition and a bathroom door. The rest, from living-room and bedroom floors to internal doors and the basin and shower set, is optional: "If you opt-in for OCS, the cost of the optional components will be added to the price of the flat." Our figures include no OCS prices, so we quote none; our BTO renovation guide covers the choice between HDB's package and your own contractor.

HDB's after-grant prices, then ours. HDB's June release prices Woodgrove's cheapest flats after grants at:

HDB's launch release, June 2026: "The starting prices after grant amounts are illustrative. The actual grant amount received will depend on the household's income and eligibility."

Read the grant column before the price. The $17,000 2-room Flexi assumes the full $120,000 EHG, which only first-timer families earning up to $1,500 a month receive, and HDB's exercise-wide headline of "a 4-room Standard flat starting from $222,000" is not a Woodgrove figure: Woodgrove's own 4-room row in the same release starts at $273,000. On HDB's EHG bands, the cheapest flat of each type for a first-timer family at four household incomes:

The EHG follows average gross monthly household income over the 12 months before the HFE application, and none is paid above $9,000; the full grant needs a lease that covers the youngest buyer to 95. A 99-year 2-room Flexi carries an $8,000 household income ceiling for HFE letters applied for from 24 August 2026; June 2026 applicants were assessed against the earlier $7,000.

What the HDB loan asks of your income. HDB sizes its loan at a 3.0% interest floor over 25 years and caps the instalment at 30% of income. For the full 75% loan on the cheapest flat of each type:

PropKaki arithmetic on HDB's loan rules, before grants. At the top of the 4-room range, $437,000, the income needed is $5,181 a month. HDB's actual loan rate is below the 3.0% floor, and your HFE letter sets your real loan.

Woodgrove holds the February and June 2026 BTO price records at the small end of its list; its 4-room, the flat with the stiffest first-timer queue of June's BTO exercise, is a mid-priced Standard flat that arrives unfinished.

An application rate is the number of applications from one household type divided by the flats HDB set aside for that type. HDB prints it by town and flat type, so rows are often shared between projects in the same town. Woodgrove was the only Woodlands BTO project in June, so every row below is Woodgrove's alone.

HDB's final June 2026 rates, application window 17 to 24 June 2026. A dash means the group could not apply for that flat type. HDB's medians across the June 2026 exercise: 1.4 for first-timer families and 14.3 for second-timer families (3-room and bigger), and 7.8 for first-timer singles (2-room Flexi).

How the rows rank. Set against the June 2026 BTO exercise and the two before it (see our application rates guide):

• First-timer families, 4-room, 4.1: the highest first-timer family rate of the June 2026 BTO exercise, above both Prime projects, Lakeview Cascadia (3.9) and Berlayar Rise (3.3). From October 2025 to June 2026, no BTO 4-room row made up only of Standard projects ran higher; the one 4-room row above it, in Tampines in February 2026, combined Standard Tampines Bliss with Plus Tampines Nova.
• First-timer families, 3-room (2.3), 5-room (2.5) and 2-room Flexi (0.8): each also the highest first-timer family rate of the June 2026 BTO exercise for its flat type (the 5-room had one June rival, Sembawang's shared 5-room/3Gen row). The 2-room Flexi figure is still below 1: first-timer families filed fewer applications than the 2-room Flexi flats set aside for them.
• First-timer singles, 2-room Flexi, 19.3: the highest singles' rate of the June 2026 BTO exercise, about two and a half times HDB's median; across HDB's February and June 2026 BTO launches, only Tampines Nova's 2-room Flexi row ran higher for singles, and in October 2025 Teban Heights' row did too.
• Seniors, 2-room Flexi, 3.9: the highest seniors' rate of the June 2026 BTO exercise too.

How to read 4.1. It means about one 4-room flat set aside for first-timer families for every 4.1 first-timer family applications. It is not a probability, for three reasons. HDB shortlists up to 200% of the flats, so some queue numbers fall beyond the supply and depend on others not booking. About 20% of applications, HDB says, come from households that applied in earlier launches and may still be waiting to book. And ballot weight differs within the group: under HDB's current rules, as its August 2026 release states them, First-Timer (Parents & Married Couples) families get three ballot chances, other first-timer families two and second-timer families one, and the same release gives First-Timer (Parents & Married Couples) families first priority under the Family and Parenthood Priority Scheme for a Standard flat of 4 rooms or fewer. A single rate averages households of different weight.

If you hold a number. Booking starts from 4 weeks after the ballot results and takes several months to work through the queue, so when your turn comes you choose from whatever is left. Know the cost of walking away before the appointment: a first-timer family that does not select a flat is "placed in the second-timer category for a 1-year period", and Woodgrove's second-timer family rate for a 4-room was 15.0; singles and second-timer families "will not be able to participate in any sales exercises for a 1-year period". HDB waives the count only when "10 or fewer BTO flats" are left to choose from. At booking you pay an option fee of $500 for a 2-room Flexi, $1,000 for a 3-room or $2,000 for a 4-room or bigger. Cancel after booking and you lose the option fee; cancel after signing the Agreement for Lease and you lose 5% of the price instead. Either way, a 1-year wait-out follows. Our step-by-step guide walks through the appointment.

Every Woodgrove queue was its own, and every first-timer family queue led its flat type in June 2026: the demand was for this project, in this town.

A rate file counts applications; it does not record reasons. What HDB's June figures do show is where Woodgrove stood out, and where it did not.

1. A small 4-room batch. Of Woodgrove's 656 flats, 162 were 4-room and 257 were 5-room, and both flat types drew exactly 832 applications. Spread over fewer flats, the same number of applications gave a higher rate: 4.1 for first-timer families in the 4-room, 2.5 in the 5-room.

2. The only new BTO flats in town. Woodgrove was the only Woodlands BTO project in HDB's October 2025, February 2026 and June 2026 exercises; Woodlands' launches in the year before that, from October 2024 to July 2025, were Marsiling Ridge, Woodlands North Verge and Woodlands North Grove. Woodlands' 4-room row in February 2026's Sale of Balance Flats also ran among that exercise's longer first-timer family queues, though those were a small batch of flats launched before October 2024 (our SBF guide has the town-by-town rates).

3. Price kept the pool wide. HDB's own June release, working from typical selling prices, says a family earning $4,000 a month, with an $80,000 EHG, could buy "a 3-room or 4-room flat in any of the Standard projects", with the mortgage serviced from CPF "with little or no cash payment". That put Woodgrove's 4-room within reach of a very wide band of first-timer families. It did the same for Sembawang's Standard 4-rooms, so affordability explains why the pool was large, not why it gathered in Woodlands.

4. A wide gap to what young Woodlands flats cost. HDB set each Woodgrove flat type against resale flats of its own choosing nearby:

HDB's Annex A, June 2026; the gap compares the midpoint of each range and is PropKaki arithmetic. HDB: "The differences in attributes between the resale comparables and the new flats should be taken into account when making a comparison."

The 4-room comparables are the same 93 sqm as Woodgrove's, with about 92 years of lease left, and they are HDB's picks. On that basis Woodgrove's 4-room is priced 44% below HDB's resale comparables, midpoint to midpoint: the widest 4-room gap of the June 2026 BTO exercise, and level, at whole-percent precision, with Kim Keat Crest's in February for the widest of HDB's February and June 2026 BTO launches. The town's own data sits at the same level: Woodlands 4-room flats with leases from 2015 resold for a median $650,000 from July 2025 to June 2026 (159 resales), mostly on Woodlands Drive 50 (32), Woodlands Street 13 (29) and Woodlands Crescent (25). That median describes those streets, not Woodgrove Avenue, and it is other flats' price: Woodgrove has never been sold. The gap alone cannot explain the queue, though: Sembawang Brook's and Sembawang Portico's 4-rooms sat almost as far below their own HDB comparables, with finishes in the price, and their shared row drew 0.6.

5. Standard rules at a Standard price. Outside Sembawang and Woodlands, every June 4-room was Plus or Prime and dearer: Kebun Baru Ridge and Kebun Baru Breeze in Ang Mo Kio from $543,000 and $547,000, Lakeview Cascadia in Bishan from $534,000 and Berlayar Rise in Bukit Merah from $592,000, each with a 10-year MOP. Woodgrove's 4-room, from $353,000, carries a 5-year MOP and none of the Plus and Prime resale conditions.

What Woodgrove did not offer: speed, finishes or the lowest 4-room price in June's BTO exercise. June's full line-up:

HDB's Annex A and final rates, June 2026. HDB published one 4-room rate for Sembawang Brook and Sembawang Portico together, and one for Kebun Baru Ridge and Kebun Baru Breeze together.

Sembawang's two projects started lower, topped out no higher, had shorter estimated waits and included finishes, and first-timer families there filed 0.6 applications per 4-room flat, in the row the two projects shared. On everything a price list measures, Sembawang was the easier buy in June. Families still crowded into Woodgrove. Their reasons for choosing Woodlands are their own; a rate file records only that they did.

What set Woodgrove apart in June was its postcode, not its price: the only new Woodlands BTO flats in the October 2025, February 2026 and June 2026 exercises.

The 2-room Flexi is where Woodgrove's two stories meet: the cheapest BTO flat of HDB's February and June 2026 launches and, for singles, the second-hardest queue in them. Both are true because HDB divides the flats between applicant groups before anyone applies.

HDB's final June 2026 rates for Woodgrove's 157 2-room Flexi flats, which drew 1,131 applications; the row is Woodgrove's alone. HDB's June 2026 median for first-timer singles was 7.8.

Why the singles' figure ran so high. HDB reserves a share of every project's 2-room Flexi flats for seniors first, then divides the rest between first-timer families, second-timer families and singles; our application rates guide sets out the quotas. In a small batch, that leaves singles few flats. Woodgrove's 157 was the smallest 2-room Flexi batch of the June 2026 BTO exercise, and in HDB's February and June 2026 BTO launches the two highest singles' rates came from the two smallest batches, Tampines Nova's in February and Woodgrove's in June. Every other June 2026 BTO 2-room Flexi row ran below 8 for singles. For a single, check the size of the batch as closely as the price: a small batch leaves few flats for singles.

What a single would have paid. Singles aged 35 and above pay HDB's additional $15,000, built into the price, so the cheapest Woodgrove 2-room Flexi becomes $152,000. The EHG for singles reaches $60,000 and stops above $4,500 of the single's own income:

On HDB's EHG (Singles) bands, from $137,000 plus the $15,000. HDB's June release says a single earning $3,500, with a $15,000 EHG, could buy "a 2-room Flexi flat in any of the Standard projects". A single's income ceiling for a 99-year 2-room Flexi is $8,000 a month for HFE letters applied for from 24 August 2026; it was $7,000 when June 2026 applicants applied.

Seniors. Buyers aged 55 and above could take the same flat type on a short lease, from $46,000 for 15 years up to $98,000 to $126,000 for the larger flat on 45 years, provided the lease lasts every buyer and spouse to at least 95. Seniors filed 3.9 applications per 2-room Flexi set aside for them, the June 2026 BTO exercise's highest seniors' rate, so their queue was contested too. On any lease, a 2-room Flexi may not rent out a bedroom at all.

If you are single and lost this ballot: past rates do not predict the next exercise, but when HDB launches in November, check how many 2-room Flexi flats each project offers, and weigh the size of the batch alongside the price.

Woodgrove is a Standard project, so its rules after the keys are the lightest in HDB's three-tier framework.

HDB's rules on selling, renting out bedrooms, renting out a whole flat and income ceilings.

Against June's alternatives, the difference is real. The Plus flats in Ang Mo Kio and the Prime flats in Bishan and Bukit Merah carry a 10-year MOP, can never be let as a whole, and their owners pay HDB a percentage of the resale price or valuation, whichever is higher, when they sell. A future buyer of a Woodgrove flat inherits none of those conditions.

We give no rent and no resale price for Woodgrove. It has not been built, let or sold, and any figure would be a forecast. For how Standard flats have fared as they reach their MOP, see our MOP guide.

Five years in, a Woodgrove flat carries no clawback, no permanent letting ban and no income test for a next buyer who skips the grant.

HDB's estimate for Woodgrove is 42 months. It runs from the median month in which buyers select their flats to the median month the blocks are projected to be completed, so the clock starts at selection, not at application, and it describes the project as a whole rather than your block.

HDB's Annex A, June 2026; HDB gives two figures for Berlayar Rise.

Across HDB's BTO launches from October 2025 to June 2026, 42 months sits in the middle of the range. For a Standard project it is on the slow side: most Standard BTO launches in that period came in at 33 months or less (see our waiting times guide). Woodgrove is not one of HDB's Shorter Waiting Time projects, which are those under 36 months.

No completion date. HDB has not published one for Woodgrove, and adding 42 months to a launch or selection month would be our guess, not HDB's figure. The brochure also notes that residential blocks may be finished ahead of the precinct's facilities, so some of the precinct's facilities may follow the keys. After you book, rely on HDB's own updates on your flat rather than on any date you see quoted elsewhere.

Count the 42 months as a cost alongside the price: it is the time you will spend housed somewhere else before a Woodgrove flat is yours to live in.

For a flat in Woodlands itself, resale is the only route open as of September 2026; for a new flat anywhere, November is the next chance, and your Woodgrove application still counts for something.

The next exercise. HDB's November 2026 exercise has about 7,960 flats in Bedok, Geylang, Sembawang, Tengah, Toa Payoh and Yishun. Its preliminary list has no Woodlands flats, and HDB names no projects or classifications before launch day (see our BTO launch schedule). HDB's own advice, from its June release, is to "consider applying to projects with lower application rates, such as those with an application rate of around one or lower". Past rates do not predict the next exercise; for reference, June's Sembawang 4-room row, shared by Sembawang Brook and Sembawang Portico, ran at 0.6 for first-timer families.

Extra ballot chances. Under HDB's current rules (August 2026), an unsuccessful Woodgrove application counts towards HDB's extra chances: a first-timer family that has missed out in two or more BTO applications for Standard flats gets one more chance for each later Standard application, up to five in total for First-Timer (Parents & Married Couples) families and four for other first-timer families. Only Standard applications count.

If you were hoping for leftovers. HDB's last Sale of Balance Flats, in February 2026, offered 4,320 flats; as at 18 September 2026 HDB had announced no other.

Buying into Woodlands now. If the town is the point, resale is the route open today. PropKaki's analysis of HDB resale registrations in Woodlands, July 2025 to June 2026:

These are other flats. The young-flat medians describe the streets in the last column, not Woodgrove Avenue, and the all-ages medians mix flats of every age and remaining lease. Woodgrove has never been resold and has no resale price or rent.

Two things stand out. Nearly every Woodlands 2-room resale in the window was a flat with a lease from 2015, so the town's 2-room market is a young-flat market. And Woodlands Street 13 and Woodlands Crescent appear among the busiest streets for every flat type, so the young-flat medians lean on a few estates rather than the whole town. A resale Standard flat bought without the CPF Housing Grant has no income ceiling; with the grant, or for a new 4-room or bigger flat, the family ceiling is $16,000 a month for HFE letters applied for from 24 August 2026.

Missing Woodgrove closes the Woodlands BTO door for now, not the town: its young flats keep changing hands, at resale prices.

The documents behind this review. HDB's June 2026 launch release, including its after-grant starting prices, its income ladder and its advice on application rates, and the release's Annex A price list, for the flat types, sizes, prices, estimated waiting time and resale comparables; the Woodgrove Acres sales brochure, for the blocks, setting, facilities, transport, rental flats and finishes; HDB's final application rates for the June 2026 exercise; property_rules, PropKaki's register of HDB rules, for the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant bands, income ceilings, ballot chances, the MOP, the renting rules, the non-selection rule, option fees and cancellation; and PropKaki's analysis of HDB resale registrations in Woodlands from July 2025 to June 2026. The other June 2026 projects' figures come from the same Annex A and rate file. Rankings against 2026's other launches are from our live BTO guides, which draw on the same HDB data.

Sums that are ours, not HDB's. The price per square metre, the gap between the midpoints of the new-flat and resale-comparable ranges, the loan and income table, and the after-grant prices on HDB's EHG bands are PropKaki's sums on HDB's figures.

Lines we did not cross. No completion date: HDB published none, and adding the wait to a launch month would be a guess. No resale price, rent or forecast for Woodgrove Acres, which has not been built and has never been sold or let; the town figures and HDB's comparables describe other flats. No probabilities: application rates describe a closed exercise and do not predict the next one. Grant and loan figures are illustrations on HDB's bands and rules; your HFE letter decides yours. No reasons for applicants' choices beyond what HDB's figures show. This is a desktop analysis of HDB's documents, not a site or showflat visit, and it is not financial advice: verify every figure with HDB before you act.