2,160 cheap flats to go on sale next month

Some 2,160 new subsidised flats will go on the market at the end of next month at prices of as little as HK$1.9 million, sources with knowledge of the plan said.

The cut-price homes are being offered under the Home Ownership Scheme, the Housing Authority programme aimed in part at the "sandwich class" - those too poor to enter the city's red-hot private market but too rich to apply for public housing.

They are the first new flats released since HOS was revived by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in 2012, nine years after it was scrapped as prices in the private market plummeted.

Ranging from 345 sq ft to 475 sq ft, the flats are at developments in Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan, Tsing Yi and Yuen Long and will be ready in 2017, the source said. The biggest and most expensive flats are in Tsuen Wan, while the smallest and cheapest are in Sha Tin.

The sources said more than 90 per cent of the flats would be priced at between HK$2 million and HK$3 million, about 30 per cent below the market value. But steeper discounts would be offered to applicants deemed unable to afford the homes.

Buyers last year rushed to snap up 832 unsold or returned apartments offered under the scheme. Earlier this year, there was a similar rush to buy former public rental flats in Tai O, Lantau, that were converted to HOS.

As with previous tranches, 60 per cent of the homes will be offered to public housing tenants - so-called green form applicants, with 40 per cent going to "white form" applicants, those renting in the private sector.