Advertisement
Advertisement
Henderson Land
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Exterior view of the One Prestige site in North Point. Photo: Felix Wong

How small can they go? Henderson Land to release Kowloon flats starting from just 161 square feet

Seven Victory Avenue in Ho Man Tin will feature 250 flats between 161 and 390 sq ft in size

Henderson Land Development is set to release more of Hong Kong’s tiniest flats.

Apartments in its Seven Victory Avenue project in Ho Man Tin start at just 161 square feet and could go on sale as early as this month. The expected completion date is the last day of 2018.

The building, located in Kowloon West near Kadoorie Hill, will have 250 units ranging from 161 to 390 sq ft in size, over half of them single-room studios. The others will be two-room or open-plan apartments.

The smallest unit at Seven Victory Avenue will be even tinier than the 163 sq ft flat - the smallest on Hong Kong Island - unveiled yesterday at the launch of Henderson’s One Prestige development in North Point.

Sign board for the One Prestige developed by Henderson Land in North Point. Photo: Felix Wong
Mark Hahn Ka-fai, general manager of sales at Henderson, said the development is in “one of the most prestigious locations in Kowloon.”

James Fisher, director of market analysis and analytics at Spacious Hong Kong, said the current increase in the number of small flats in the city has been spurred by high property and living expenses combined with “stagnant” incomes. He believes it will become a long-term trend as developers reduce apartment sizes in order to provide affordable units.

“It’s just algebra right, solve for X,” he said. “If your income is staying the same and the price per square foot is going up, there’s only one thing left to come down, and that’s the square footage.”

Mike Wong, deputy managing director of Sun Hung Kai Properties, said the new trend of building small flats stems from the fact households in Hong Kong are getting smaller on average.

According to the government’s Hong Kong Domestic Household Projections, the proportion of two-person households will increase from 25.2 per cent in 2011 to 29 per cent in 2021, while five-person households will drop from 12.2 per cent to 9.8 in the same period. The trend appears to be the result of more young people choosing to leave the family home to live on their own or with their partner.

“Upcoming demand for new flats will concentrate on the household size of one people and two people,” said Wong as the company’s released its full-year result on Thursday.

But Sun Hung Kai’s smaller flats would have an average size of 300 sq ft, with a layout designed to maximise space, he said.

Meanwhile, Cheung Kong Property Holdings announced on Thursday the sale of 14 flats in its Yuen Long development, La Maison, worth a total of HK$250 million. The price per square foot for these units are all above HK$10,000. Two of the units were sold late last month, a situation described by the company as “ideal”.

The payment method for the flats will allow stamp duty to be reduced by 50 per cent for nine of its flats, effective from October 3.

“The first-hand luxury market has continued to be buoyant, and we’re optimistic about the development’s prospects,” said Helen Fung, senior sales manager at Cheung Kong Property.

Buyers will need to put down as little as 2 per cent of the property price for their down payment.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Henderson launches more tiny flats in Kowloon
Post