The History of Executive Condominiums in Singapore and How It Came About

Since their introduction in 1999, executive condominiums in Singapore have been gaining popularity among home buyers, and it is not difficult to see why. Apart from offering the home buyer a private condominium at a subsidised rate, this also means the buyer potentially stands to gain capital appreciation when they sell off their executive condominium in future.

When executive condominiums were first introduced in 1999, it was meant to cater to the ‘sandwich class’, the middle-income class who wanted more than what a HDB could offer, but yet at the same time find that private condominiums were out of their reach. It was with these people in mind, to give more housing options to Singaporeans that the first executive condominium was launched, and later of course, the hotly debated DBSS (Design Build Sell Scheme). The DBSS has now been halted impending a review, but the executive condominium market continues to churn along strongly.

The first executive condominium launched was Eastvale in Pasir Ris, in Jan 1999. It proved to be such a hit among Singaporeans that more such developments followed since then until today. Executive condos launched in those early days have now reached their minimum occupation of 5 and 10 years, and are now considered full private condominiums. They can be sold in the open market to Singaporeans, PRs and foreigners. (See here for a full list of executive condominiums.)

More recently during the global financial crisis in 2008, the Singapore housing market took a downturn which saw sales volume and prices falling. With a lot of uncertainty during that period, the executive condominium market similarly stalled as many buyers stayed out of the market. There was a temporary hiatus of executive condominiums in Singapore at that time by HDB who did not release land sites for executive condominium housing.

As we know now after that short crisis, Singapore has enjoyed a continued property boom till today. The property market saw a sustained price growth amid a buoyant housing market. At this time, the government was confident and began selling land sites again for executive condos which continues on till now in 2013 and probably beyond, barring any major global crisis.