Ru's Personal Finance Blog: Things about HDB flat's cooling measures

Our government has announced some new measures to ensure that our property market to be more stable and sustainable on 30 Aug 2010. I think their aim is to cool down the property market so that middle and low income group can afford the property in the long run and to reduce over speculations. Here's my summary of the overall picture in my knowledge:

Concessionary HDB Loans (as in direct loan from HDB themselves)

Still granted at up to 90% of the valuation limit¹. [I think it's good]
Only offered to eligible 1st time flat buyers and 2nd time buyers that are right-sizing their flats to meet their housing needs. [Looks like not change here to me]
For 2nd time buyers must use 100% of their CPF refund and 50% of the cash proceeds from their 1st HDB flat sales to pay off the new flat before they can get a loan. [This is something you may want to take note of. I think they are just trying to reduce speculations.]
10% down-payment is required

Bank Loan

20% down-payment is required. [I personally find it strange that the person can loan more money from HDB than from the bank.]

General:

For Build to Order flat (Aka BTO, DBSS - Design, Build and Sell Scheme) and EC, your option fee is 5% of the purchase price to be paid in cash only.
As HDB flats owners needs to stay in the flat for at least 3 years before they can sell, they are not affected by the new Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD)'s regulations.
Additional HDB Housing Grant is available to help the lower income family buy their 1st subsidized flat. (Only for those family with annual average gross income of less than $5K/month, subsidy varies from $5K to $40K)
For private residential property owners, they must dispose off their private residential property within 6 months after they buying their resale flat. (Even overseas property must be disposed, if it's under their name.)

For such owners, they will only be allowed to take up bank loans and if they currently have any outstanding loan from the bank, they can only take up to 70% of the valuation limit. Of which, 10% of the down-payment must be made in cash! [I think that this rule is to deter the private property owners from buying HDB properties so that the prices will cool down more as usually such owners have more money to buy flats]

*Note: Please note that my comments are in [...]. Feel free to correct me if you have any opinions. :)