To reduce the FOCUS on Cash-Over-Valuation (COV) in negotiations during the sale of a flat, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) will only accept valuation requests from resale flat buyers after they have been granted an Option to Purchase by flat sellers. The latest change will take effect from 5pm March 10, 2014. 
Previously, sellers usually got a request for a valuation from HDB first and then negotiated with buyers over how much more or less should be paid. The excess cash over valuation is known as the COV. Buyers and sellers will now have to agree upon a price first before getting an official valuation and Housing and Development Board (HDB) will only accept valuation requests from resale flat buyers ( yes, only buyer and they have to pay for it ) after they have been granted an Option to Purchase by flat sellers. Under the new rules, buyers who are granted OTP will also have 21 calendar days, instead of 14 calendar days to exercise the OTP, to adjust to the new procedure. The aim is to get negotiations to focus on recent transaction prices and reduce the focus on COVs. Currently, resale prices are published twice a month. With immediate effect, HDB will also publish daily prices of resale transactions as soon as they are registered.
While the balance between buyers and sellers has been re-titled, the market is still at very high price, is not at its optimal state, and thus it is premature to withdraw cooling measures, Mr Khaw said.
While it is still too early to gauge the impact of this latest policy, I guess the buyers now will tend to make an offer more conservatively based on recent transaction prices range to avoid not being able to get the loan amount.
Source - HDB, Straits Time
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