AS DEMAND for subsidised rental housing grows, the Government is reviewing the criteria for applicants to weed out the less needy among them.

Those who have sold their own property could find themselves barred or placed at the back of the queue.

Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan said on Wednesday that the Housing Board was getting quite a number of rental applicants from the elderly as well as divorcees.

These applicants may not be as needy as others in the queue, said Mr Mah, after visiting a batch of 180 newly converted rental flats in Woodland on Wednesday.

Rising property prices and rentals islandwide has swelled the ranks seeking subsidised rental housing.

There are about 3,000 applicants in the queue and they have to wait for five to 11 months to get a rental flats, which is twice as long from a year ago.

The demand is so high that the HDB on Wednesday announced that it was suspending its Daily Flat Selection scheme, that allowed applicants to pick leftover rental flats for immediate occupation after monthly rental flat allocation exercises.

'With the current high high take-up of rental flats in all locations under the monthly selection exercises, there is no need to allocate rental flats through the DSS,' it said.

The HDB, which allocates subsidised rental flats to families earning no more than $1,500 a month, charges $26 to $205 a month for a one-room flat, and $44 to $275 a month for two-room flats.

The first batch of 180 flats in Woodlands, which were converted from three- and four-room flats, will be ready for allocation this month.

Another 748 rental flats in Boon Lay will be added to the pool in March, while 290 more in Redhill will be ready in early next year.

Meanwhile, 976 rental flats will be built from scratch in Choa Chu Kang, Sembawang and Yishun and will be ready in 2010.

This will add 2,194 homes to the stock of 42,000 rental one- and two-room flats.