Housing supply ripening as supply expected to exceed demand in 5 years

Hong Kong think tank Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF) released its latest forecast of the private and public housing supply and anticipates that the city's housing supply will enter a phase of abundance in the next five years.

According to the "Housing Landscape Navigator 2024" released on Thursday, OHKF estimated an average annual completion of 19,100 private and 35,000 public housing units over the next five years, surpassing the government's Long Term Housing Strategy (LTHS) target.

With the drop in the percentage of delayed public housing completions and the construction of Light Public Housing units also progressing to plan, the think tank anticipated the waiting time for public housing could be shortened from the current 5.8 years to 4.5 years in the 2026/27 fiscal year.

OHKF expected the completion of public housing units will exceed the LTHS target by 33 percent in the next ten years. Even under the most pessimistic scenario where site delivery and construction are delayed, the resulting completions will still exceed the LTHS target by 10 percent.

The foundation suggested that as the housing supply outlook continues to improve, it is time to shift the policy focus from enhancing quantity to enhancing quality.

This includes increasing the per capita area of public housing units and raising the proportion of subsidized sale flats. 

Ryan Ip Man-ki, the vice president cum co-head of Public Policy Institute of Research at the Foundation, recommended raising the proportion of subsidized sale flats from the current ratio of public housing, subsidized sale flats, and private housing of 5:2:3 to a 3:4:3 for the next decade, meaning 30 percent public housing, 40 percent subsidized sale flats, and 30 percent private housing.