Changelog & list of updates

Several people asked me when the page was last updated.
If today I correct a spelling error, can be considered updated today?
Last update matter less… instead, please report if I forgot to add something, or suggest what else to add, and I may update it today!

List of updates for Housing in Singapore section

Note that my website was originally on teoalida.webs.com (hosted by Webs free hosting), started in April 2009. I did not wrote update log until December 2011.

December 2009

• Launch of teoalida.webs.com/realcities.htm (later renamed to Housing Around the World) and teoalida.webs.com/singapore.htm, one page dedicated to HDB history, displaying about 30-40 floor plans.

March 2011

• Added a second page: list of BTO & DBSS projects.

Octomber 2011

• Text modified, apartments replaced with flats (a FAILED attempt get rid of foreign visitors, reaching here by searching “# sqm apartment“), 2 more floor plans added, list of BTO and DBSS updated.

December 2011

• 2010s decade rewritten, HDB Statistics.xls updated with Annual Report 2011, 6 more floor plans added (3 JTC floor plans)
• Originally intended to show the most common HDB floor plans (about 30), but meantime I added too many unique and rare flat types (75 floor plans now), the page grew from 40 to 80 KB and now is eating too much of website bandwidth which on Webs.com free accounts is only 500 MB per month. For a moment I was thinking to make a new website on Blogspot and some day move there all content about Singapore housing, but meantime I accumulated enough Webs Credits to buy additional bandwidth.

January 2012

• Added a third page: list of SERS sites.
• HDB statistics moved to a fourth page (BAD idea?).
• Parts of text removed, 2 photos removed, 6 least-clicked floorplans removed, another 2 floorplans added, according the poll seems that people are not interested in text and photos, just in floorplans. The size of main Singapore page was reduced with 15%.

February 2012

• Added HDB vs Condo (comparison plus examples of condo crazy floor plans).

March 2012

• URLs of pages changed, for example teoalida.webs.com/HDB%20Statistics%20-%20BTO%20&%20DBSS%20list.htm renamed as teoalida.webs.com/hdbbtodbsslist.htm (The previous URL was dating back from a period in which my webdesign knowledge was low, and the page was a simple HTML page made in my computer (instead of using Webs SiteBuilder) and uploaded to server, which replaced each space with “%20” instead of merging the words like in case of Webs SiteBuilder-created pages.
• Main Singapore article also renamed from teoalida.webs.com/Singapore.htm in teoalida.webs.com/SingaporeHDBfloorplans.htm, the former URL may be reused for the general article about the country, currently found in //teoalida.webs.com/housingaroundtheworld.htm page.
• Several more floorplans added during March, reaching 88 floorplans and 42 photographs.

May 2012

• Many text updates, enlarged the analysis about the Shrinking Flat Sizes.

July 2012

• Added offer to sell PDF brochures, as well as preview screenshots of HDB Blocks Database and HDB Resale Transactions Database, maybe someone will be interested to buy my work?
• Added 2 more floorplans, added subheadings at decade’s floorplans.
• New page: HDB Flat Types.
• List of SERS sites updated, more info about replacement blocks.

August 2012

• HDB vs Condo paragraph deleted from HDB Floor Plans page and added in general Singapore page, the existing Condos paragraph that was here was deleted. The HDB floorplans page should remain HDB-only. HUDC list updated.
• Added 3 more floorplans (the mysterious 1991-1992 block type).

October 2012

• Added the graph of average flat size over history (I could and shall made it since much time ago!).
• Text corrections about blocks’ range of years.
• Added the last 4 important floor plans that were missing (SIT 2-Room, the 1984 EA, a 2000s 3-room).

2 November 2012

• Time to move the Singapore-related pages to new website www.teoalida.com which I have started in August. This caused confusion along visitors for about 4 days, that’s why I did in a friday as the traffic over weekend is lower. Originally planned for 28-30 september, I delayed with one month due to SBF launch.
• BTO and DBSS list are now two separate pages, as people voted, the two analysis Shrinking HDB flat sizes and Will prices drop? are now on own page instead of HDB Floor plans page, HDB Records also on own page, split from HDB Statistics page, Most Beautiful HDB / Condo / House splitted in 3 pages.
  With other words, 8 pages have been converted into 15 pages!

Due to numerous complaints that the website is cluttered, overloaded, too much information, I have decided to STOP adding new articles, images, etc, from now I will only update regularly the lists of BTO, SERS, etc.
If you suggest to post more things, please provide also a suggestion how to de-clutter website!

November 2012

• EC list added under construction condos, not just the completed ones.
• HDB Statistics updated after Annual Report 2012 has been released on 15 November.

January 2013

• Will prices fall? page expanded.
• Few text corrections in other pages.

Currently the article contains 42 photos and 100 floor plans.

June 2013

As I am paying for a a shared server with unlimited bandwidth, why I kept hosting HDB floor plans on Photobucket? I moved all images to my own server. And since all links broke and had to be remade, I also renamed all images (for the first time in 3.5 years passed from initial launch).

Now each floor plan is named by exact range of years it was built, not just by estimated year when it was designed. For example HDB-1975-3NG-corridor-67sqm.png was renamed to HDB-1976-1988-3NG-corridor-67sqm.png.

Now I avoid arguing for example if someone ask for “floor plan for Tampines blk X built in 1983, and I give him the 1975 one, he may say “Are you sure this is the right floor plan? All Tampines was built in 1980s!“

January 2014

• Article text reoptimized, 1 floor plan removed, 3 photos removed “Pinnacle = worst HDB” removed too, as well as other info that too few people might be interested. Page length (number of words) reduced with 10%

However, by re-counting them I found 44 photos and 109 floor plans, of which 52 taken from October 2009 SBF (cream-color floor plans), the rest being from random forums.

August 2014

• Most floor plan images re-made, using floor plans from March 2012 SBF instead of the old floor plans with cream background taken from October 2009 SBF plus floor plans collected from random forums. About 15 images removed (least-clicked floor plans), image thumbnails created, page size reduced with 60%, from 20 MB to 8 MB. This was necessary job, because of the rising website popularity, people were occasionally getting error messages “Resource limit reached”.

Currently the article contains 33 photos and 91 floor plans, of which 70 from March 2012 SBF (enhanced images and labeled), the rest being from random forums.

November 2014

• A large amount of work done for HDB Database, harmonized table format over all towns, bring all towns up-to-date (previously towns compiled in 2009 were never updated since 2009 while other towns compiled in 2014 were “as 2014”. Number of units in each block will be done at later time, probably when someone will PAY me for massive effort needed.

May 2015

• First sale of HDB Database! Too bad that he paid only for Yishun, so I spent 2 days to complete number of units for Yishun only.

June 2015

• A large amount of work for HDB Database, I got now more interest in this project and I completed number of units for all towns, also added postal code.

September 2015

• I learned to scrap data from websites, someone asked me for a database of condos so I created Condo Database by scraping SingaporeExpats website.

July 2016

• I also scraped PropertyGuru website to create a better Condo Database.

July 2017

• I created a drop-down box to show information about HDB blocks

August 2017

• I added 2 major databases: All buildings database (web scraping from OneMap.sg) and Resale Flat Prices database + analysis.

September 2017

• I found at a real estate agent a Google Maps map with pins for HDB blocks so I decided to do the same on my website, offering information about HDB blocks in better way than the drop-down box made 2 months earlier.

November 2021

I combined 3 pages/Excel databases (list of BTO projects, list of BTO brochures and list of BTO prices) into a single page.

2024

Many people in Singapore know me as Teoalida, but some have trouble remembering/spelling my name correctly when trying to find housing information (Google Search Console shows searches as Teolida, Teo Alida, etc), and a website covering too many topics does not perform well at SEO.

I sent a list of 8 domain names available to ~20 friends, and 10 of them replied, most were in favor of HousingMap.sg.

Next step is to decide URL structure for subpages. When I initially created Teoalida.com I made URLs without hyphens, example /singapore/hdbfloorplans/, /singapore/btolist, and later I though that would have been better to use /siingapore/list-of-bto/

But I didn’t bothered changing subpages URL anymore, because I was planning that one day I will move to a new domain. Now I think that the best option is just housingmap.sg/bto, /sers, /hdb-floor-plans, etc.

I

What I should do next?

Possible suggestions for HDB Floor plans page

I want HDB floor plans categorized by flat type instead of decade?

Interesting idea! BUT have more disadvantages than advantages.

• People may misbelieve that the all 4-room floor plans posted on category are the all 4-room layouts possible. Nobody could ever have all possible layouts, small differences leads to thousand distinct layouts!
• Also if I sort floor plans by flat type, will lose the connection between different flat types with similar floor plan within same block.
• People visit my website to see the flat layout before buying a resale flat, most of them know the block year, if the floor plans will be sorted by flat type, how people would know which layout is the one of their desired block?
• Some visitors use the chat in lower-right to ask me to identify or to give them floor plan of block number X. I am skilled enough to identify block generation and layouts in it just by looking into satellite photos, then indicate to visitor the block year model where to look.

I will review this idea after moving to new website, and I will have more freedom on webdesign. Meantime, try giving me BETTER suggestions!

Split this page into separate pages for each decade?
Bad idea! On which page should visitors enter? 75% of website visitors do not browse other pages than their landing page. A google search for “4-Room Model A” may land you in 2000s page when you are you looking for 1982 Model A.
Also searching entire HDB history with Ctrl+F will not work anymore.

Someone complained that floor plans are not sorted by address?
Why I WOULD sort them by town or address? Each HDB town may have dozens of floor plans, each floor plan can be found in multiple towns.

Note for other websites using my HDB Floor Plans that no longer display images
My website was originally hosted on Webs.com, a free hosting service with limited, 500 MB bandwidth per month, so all floor plan images were hosted on Photobucket. During 3 years lots of people hotlinked HDB floor plans in various forums, eating 50 GB per month of my Photobucket account which had unlimited bandwidth but since March 2013 it is limited to 10 GB per month (unless I pay for premium account). Read full story.
I had to delete all HDB floor plans from Photobucket. I reuploaded all images on own server and replaced all the links on my website, but on other websites and forums you will see “Image has been moved or deleted”. Sorry for that but I don’t have access in other websites to replace the links.