The Story Of HDB’s Struggles With The DBSS: Why It Was Doomed To Fail


The Design Build And Sell Scheme (DBSS) was first introduced by the then Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan in 2005. It aimed to involve private developers in the building of public housing to offer buyers with higher incomes a wider variety of housing. DBSS flats do not have full-suite condo facilities, such as pools, gyms, etc. as ECs do. It is simply that the unit interiors have a higher quality of finishing, and are more varied than the standardised HDB floor plans.
The DBSS flats suffered from two major issues in their day: workmanship and pricing.
Workmanship issues are the most relevant to buyers, even today. Unfortunately, some DBSS developments were afflicted by complaints.
In this video, we explore how and why the DBSS project was scrapped.
If you’d like to get in touch for a more in-depth consultation, you can do so here.
Stacked
Stacked is an online editorial aimed at helping Singapore home buyers, sellers and renters make better decisions. By regularly conducting research and publishing our findings, we hope to give our readers a much better perspective on buying, selling or renting Singapore real estate.Read next from Property Market Commentary

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