Subsidised flats set aside for single Hongkongers in latest HOS scheme
Housing body reacts to rising demand for subsidised homes by unmarried tenants
Single people earning less than HK$24,500 a month who rent private flats will be eligible to buy one of 200 new government-subsidised flats set aside for them under a Housing Authority measure.
They can only apply if their assets do not exceed HK$850,000.
The scheme was approved yesterday at a meeting of the authority's subsidised housing committee as a way to cater for the housing needs of unmarried private tenants.
It followed a similar special quota scheme for unmarried applicants in the sale of secondhand Home Ownership Scheme flats in September.
Members also endorsed a proposal to reserve about half of the 2,657 HOS flats to be sold next February for existing public tenants to apply for, with the rest available for private tenants. This compared with a ratio of 6:4 for public tenants and private tenants in the last new HOS sale in March.
The March sale attracted about 135,000 applications, of which more than 123,000 were from private tenants. And some 58 per cent were single applicants. But as single applicants were given a lower priority under previous policy, their chances of being allowed to buy an HOS flat were extremely slim.