Applications for more than 7,000 subsidised flats in Hong Kong will open in the fourth quarter this year and eligible residents, including families with newborns, will enjoy a 30 per cent discount on market prices if successful, the Post has learned.
An insider said on Monday that the Housing Authority would offer 7,132 new subsidised flats this year under the Home Ownership Scheme, with prices ranging from HK$1.43 million (US$183,400) to HK$4.67 million.
Applications would cover five sites – in Kowloon’s Kwun Tong, Kai Tak and Yau Tong, as well as Tuen Mun in the New Territories and Tung Chung on Lantau Island, the source added.
However, the discount is smaller than last year’s offering, which was 38 per cent off market prices for 9,154 subsidised flats across six sites in Kai Tak, Kwun Tong, Tuen Mun and Yuen Long.
In the coming sale, the Tuen Mun site offering 2,768 flats would account for the largest proportion of the supply, followed by the Kai Tak one with 1,736 homes, the insider said.
The source added that the size of the flats would range from 186 to 510 sq ft, with the homes set to be completed between this year and 2027.
Under the Home Ownership Scheme, public rental housing tenants can apply to buy subsidised flats.
Meanwhile, “white form” applicants – prospective buyers living in private flats and not receiving housing subsidies – can apply if their income and assets fall under a set limit.
Families of two or more in the white form category will be subject to an income ceiling of HK$60,000 and an asset limit of HK$1.23 million, while the threshold amount will be halved for single-person households, the insider said.
Authorities will reserve 40 per cent of the flats for ballots from households with elderly members or newborns. They will also be given priority when it comes to selecting homes.
Such applicants can also join the normal balloting with other candidates to buy a flat.
The insider said the discount rate was “relatively low” compared with recent years and believed the move was due to low property prices. The source also expected the flats in Kai Tak would be very popular.
As part of a government drive to boost the birth rate, families with children aged three years or under at the time of application and born on or after October 25 last year, will have a better chance of buying subsidised flats for coming sales.
Anthony Chiu Kwok-wai, executive director of the Federation of Public Housing Estates, said he expected the flats in Kai Tak and Yau Tong to be the most popular as they were near the city centre.
He said the site in Tuen Mun was also quite accessible.
Chiu said it was hard to tell if the discount was attractive because it depended on buyers’ purchasing power, noting the property market had been quite volatile recently.
He said he hoped the authorities could allocate a certain proportion of the flats in each site to single households.
“That would help to increase the chance for young people to buy their own homes,” he said. “It could also guarantee a certain proportion of homes would be sold to young people at each estate.”
Priority is currently given to households with newborn babies and the elderly, leaving a limited number of places for single people.
The government rolled out a HK$20,000 cash bonus for families with newborn babies in the policy address last year.
Hong Kong’s total fertility rate – the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime – plunged to 0.8 in 2021, the lowest in the world.
A 40 per cent decline in the number of babies was also registered over four years, falling from 52,900 in 2019 to 32,500 in 2022.
