‘Like winning the lottery’: eligible Hong Kong applicants choose from 3,677 subsidised flats - but many ignore opportunity
Housing Authority received 52,800 applications for Ping Yan Court in Tin Shui Wai and Ka Shun Court in Sha Tin
Around 40 per cent of eligible applicants gave up their chance of buying government subsidised flats on the first two days of sales, official statistics show.
Only 73 applicants out of the first batch of 122 that were invited, showed up at the Housing Authority’s customer service centre in Lok Fu to choose from 3,677 flats under the government’s Home Ownership Scheme.
Stanley Wong Yuen-fai, chairman of the authority’s subsidised housing committee, said the turnout rate was weaker than previous HOS sales, which was typically about 70 to 80 per cent on the first day.
“This is not unusual,” he said. “We have never achieved a 100 per cent turnout rate.”
Wong Shing-hei, who has lived in public rental housing for most of his life, has walked away the proud owner of a new flat.
“It felt like winning the lottery,” said Wong, who had applied several times under the scheme.
The Housing Authority received 52,800 applications for Ping Yan Court in Tin Shui Wai and Ka Shun Court in Sha Tin.
According to the authority price list, flats at Ka Shun Court cost between HK$2.44 million and HK$3.27 million. The sizes of the 248 flats on offer range from 445 to 449 sq ft.
Flats at Ping Yan Court cost between HK$1.49 million and HK$3.16 million. The 2,409 flats available range in size from 376 to 573 sq ft.
Another 1,020 Hong Kong Housing Society flats are on offer at Greenhill Villa in Sha Tin.
Eligible applicants are chosen by ballot, with priority given to families living with those who are more than 60 years old.
A quota of 200 is reserved for individual applicants.
Up until Tuesday, 63 flats at three of the housing estates were sold.
Prices were set at a 30 per cent discount according to market housing prices in September last year and were not released until July. Critics maintained the government should slash them further given a recent decline in prices.
Since September, market housing prices have fallen at least 12 per cent, the authority said in a statement.
This means the 30 per cent discount offers only a 20 to 21 per cent reduction compared with current market prices.
Long Term Housing Strategy Steering Committee member Wong Kwun said the major reason for the lower turnout was a fall in market housing prices.
He added that applicants who lived in public rental housing may have pulled out because they had an option of considering flats offered in the Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Pilot Scheme.
The scheme, to be launched later this year, will offer 857 flats in San Po Kong in Kowloon that are only open to public housing tenants.
Wong said they would be offered at a larger discount compared to the current HOS, likely set at 60 per cent of the market price.
Stanley Wong said he suspected most of the applicants that did not turn up on Monday were green-form applicants or those living in public rental housing.
However, Wong Shing-hei and several other new homeowners said they would not have been able to get a similar discount elsewhere.
“Under the HOS scheme, I have to pay only a 10 per cent deposit for mortgage. If I bought a private flat, I’d definitely have to pay at least 30 per cent up front,” Masud Reza Karim, another new homeowner, said.
Karim, who came to Hong Kong in 1994 from Bangladesh, said rent increases had been a burden on him.
“I paid HK$5,900 in rent in 2004, now I’m paying HK$12,000,” Karim told the Post at the authority’s customer service centre in Lok Fu.
Eligible applicants, who were able to choose their authority flats yesterday, should be able to move in by 2018 at the earliest.
