Changes called for in the process of selling subsidised flats in Hong Kong

Housing critics are calling for changes to the process for selling subsidised housing after almost 130,000 applications were filed for just 2,160 New Territories flats under the relaunched Home Ownership Scheme (HOS).

HOS apartments are offered to applicants two years before their scheduled completion.

The first batch of residences since the suspension of the scheme in 2003 were opened up for application last month, with an occupancy target date for them of early 2017.

The Housing Authority, flooded with application documents, which took almost two weeks to count, announced on Friday that 128,900 households had joined the ballot. This meant only one in 60 would secure a flat - the lowest ratio ever since the birth of the scheme in the 1970s.

Wong Kwun, president of the Federation of Public Housing Estates and who has served on the government's former long-term housing strategy steering committee, suggested that the problem could be alleviated if applicants could be approved for properties much earlier.

"If the sale is offered four or five years ahead, supply can be put up earlier. This will meet the demand of some of those who want to buy subsidised properties but whose needs are not that imminent," he said.