Is it possible to refinance from HDB loan to bank loan immeidately within one year?

Hi Andrew, thank you for your question!

For BTOs, because of the 4-5 year wait between application and key collection, you may want to apply for an HDB loan first so that you don't have to deal with the 5% cash-only upfront downpayment. Do note that this will wipe out your CPF OA (with the option of leaving no more than $20,000 behind).

You then have the option of refinancing to a bank loan about 6 months after key collection. This is because banks will require at least 6 months of payment history to assess your creditworthiness. Do note of course that once you refinance to a bank loan, you can never go back to an HDB loan.

ALTERNATIVELY

When you are about 6 months BEFORE collecting your keys, you can apply for a bank loan. This will still be considered a new loan and not refinancing, and the LTV restriction will still apply. Why 6 months? Because banks can take up to 3-4 months to process the loan and you don't want to delay your key collection while the loan is processed.

Hope this clarifies!​​​

If I'm not wrong, it has to be a minimum of 2 years