The average waiting time for a Hong Kong public rental flat has slightly dropped to 5.7 years, as the city’s major provider is confident the housing supply will log an “obvious increase” from next year.
The Housing Authority revealed on Friday that the figure for the first quarter of 2024 for general applicants – families and elderly households – had slightly dropped from the 5.8 years recorded in the previous quarter.
Among the 5,300 general applicants housed this quarter, about 2,800 were allocated to refurbished flats. The remaining 2,500 were housed in new flats at Fu Tip Estate in Tai Po.
“Given that the average waiting time of [public housing] applicants for flats in the New Territories is generally shorter than those in [urban districts] by about a year … the average waiting time in the first quarter of 2024 [has been] slightly reduced by 0.1 years to 5.7 years.”
The authority also said it expected that the average waiting time in 2024 would remain “steady in general but may still have slight fluctuations between quarters”.
Despite the completion of several new housing projects this year, the authority stressed that its efforts would be offset by delays caused by Aggressive Construction Company Limited, which lost its licence over safety concerns after fatal accidents.
“Its impact on the average waiting time will take several quarters to be absorbed,” the authority added.
But the authority said it was confident that the overall public housing supply would “register obvious increase”.
The supply in Tuen Mun, Tung Chung and New Territories North is set to rise in 2024-25, as well as in Kwun Tong, Kwu Tung North, Fanling North and Sheung Shui in 2025-26. A total of 30,000 light public housing flats are also expected to be completed starting from early 2025.
“The target of capping the average waiting time at six years remains unchanged and we are also confident that the composite waiting time for subsidised rental housing will drop to 4.5 years in 2026-27,” it added.
During this transition period, the government will continue to develop transitional housing for providing short-term accommodation.
About 127,900 family and elderly public housing applications were submitted by the end of March 2024, down 1,500 from the previous quarter and 18 per cent from the 155,100 registered at the end of 2017.
The non-elderly one-person applications had about 92,300 cases, a 28 per cent decline compared with the 127,800 at the end of 2017, the authority said.
