THE Housing Board on Mondayput another 278 four-room and bigger flats in various established towns/estates on the market under its bi-monthly sale.

They comprise 194 units of four-room, 64 units of five-room and 20 Executive flats. The flats are located in 13 established towns/estates such as Bedok, Bukit Merah, Geylang, Tampines and Toa Payoh.

This is the second consecutive month in which the HDB is releasing flats for sale in established estates. In January, the HDB launched the sale of 1,099 surplus flats available from the Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (Sers) in Bedok, Clementi, Queenstown and Jurong West under the Balloting Exercise.

Given the overwhelming popularity of new flats in established towns and the limited number of new flats available there, the HDB would like to encourage flat buyers to consider flats in non-mature estates as well, the board said in a statement on Monday.

It added that there is ample supply of new HDB flats under the Build-To-Order (BTO) sales exercises to cater to current market demand. For example, in the of the 698 units of four-room flats in the Coral Spring@Sengkang BTO project offered for sale last September, about 200 units were still available at the end of the booking exercise on Jan 24.

The HDB has stepped up its building programme since 2007, and will offer about 4,500 new BTO flats in the first half of 2008.

So the HDB has conducted 5 bi-monthly sales exercises for four-room and bigger flats under the combined balloting/walk-in system with a total of 3,350 units offered.

As it ahs been almost one year since the introduction of this sales programme, the HDB is conducting a review of this.

Interested flat buyers can visit HDB's e-sales website to view the electronic brochurs and obtain more details on the flat supply.