The average waiting time for a Hong Kong public rental flat has decreased to 5.5 years in the second quarter of this year, down from the 5.7 years recorded from January to March. According to the latest figures released by the Housing Authority, the queuing time for general applicants, such as families and elderly households, between April and June has decreased by more than two months between the first and second quarters.
During the second quarter of 2024, around 7,000 general applicants were housed in public rental housing, marking the largest number of flats allocated since the third quarter of 2022. It is worth noting that the average waiting time for a public rental flat has not fallen under five years since 2018 and reached its peak two years ago in March at 6.1 years.
Elderly one-person households accounted for 900 of the approximately 7,000 general applicants in the second quarter. To be eligible to join the queue as an elderly one-person household, residents must be aged 58 at the time of applying and be 60 years old when they are allocated a public rental flat. The average waiting time for elderly one-person households slightly dropped to 3.7 years, a decrease from the 3.8 years recorded three months ago.
The city government has identified sufficient land to build 413,000 public flats in the next 10 years, with two-thirds of the supply expected to be completed in the latter half of the decade. According to the government’s five-year forecast, a total of 146,800 public homes will be built, including 32,500 flats set to be completed in the current financial year ending next March. The annual production is expected to peak at the financial year 2027-28 with 34,100 flats, while the supply will range between 22,400 to 29,500 in the remaining three years.
In his first policy address in 2022, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced the “light public housing” scheme, aimed at creating 30,000 government-built temporary homes in stages by the 2027-28 financial year for families who have been on the waiting list for a permanent public rental flat for at least three years. The goal of the scheme is to reduce the waiting time for permanent and temporary public rental homes to 4.5 years by 2026-27.