Hong Kong’s average waiting time for public rental housing rose to 5.5 years as of September, despite more flats being allocated, with authorities attributing the marginal rise to longer waits for homes in urban districts.
The Housing Bureau said on Wednesday that the latest waiting time for general applicants – family or elderly households – in the past 12 months was slightly higher than the 5.4 years recorded at the end of June.
Between July and September, 5,600 general applicants were allocated newly completed or existing public rental flats, an 80 per cent increase from the 3,000 households housed in the second quarter. The bureau added that 85 per cent of the 5,600 applicants were accommodated in urban districts deemed “very popular”.
Advertisement
“The waiting time for [these districts] is about two years longer than that for the New Territories,” the spokesman said.
“[As of the end of September,] the average waiting time for general applicants who were housed at public rental housing in the past 12 months has increased slightly.”
Advertisement
According to the city’s main public housing provider, only public estates in Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, Tin Shui Wai, Sheung Shui, Fanling and Tai Po were classified as homes in the New Territories.
Among the 5,600 applicants, 730 were single elderly individuals. Their average waiting time for a public rental home was 3.7 years as of September, up from 3.5 years in June.