Supply of new homes in Hong Kong to remain tight in 2013
Despite a jump in building work on new flats, completions still well short of government target
The supply of new private housing is expected to remain tight this year, property experts say, although the number of flats on which construction began or was completed rose last year.
Figures from the Transport and Housing Bureau yesterday show construction started on 18,600 new flats last year, the most since 2000 and an 80 per cent jump from 10,300 in 2011.
The number of new flats completed also rose, to 10,100 units from 9,400 in 2011. But the figure was still lower than the annual average of 18,113 over the past 15 years. It also falls short of the government's target of 20,000 a year.
Patrick Chow Moon-kit, head of research at Ricacorp Properties, said: "Given Hong Kong's population increases by 50,000 to 60,000 a year, and the number of households by about 30,000, only 10,100 newly completed flats cannot meet demand."
As the government started increasing land supply only in the final quarter of 2009, Chow said, it would not be until next year that the supply of new flats increased significantly, as it took about four or five years to build one.