Public rental housing waiting time drops to 6-year low

The waiting time for public rental housing units at the end of last year has  dropped to 5.3 years, the lowest level in six years, according to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu. 

Speaking before the weekly Executive Council meeting on Tuesday, Lee said that when he took office in 2022, the waiting time was as long as 6.1 years.

“The government has successfully reduced the waiting time by 0.8 years to 5.3 years, representing a 13 percent decrease and a reduction of nine and a half months,” Lee said. 

He added that residents of subdivided flats could save about HK$30,000 in rent while enjoying an improved living environment.

Lee expressed confidence that the waiting time could be further reduced to 4.5 years within the next five years. 

According to the Housing Authority, the average waiting time last year returned to its lowest level since 2018, based on year-end statistics.

The authority also reported a decrease in the average waiting time for elderly one-person applicants, which fell by 0.1 years to 3.4 years, the lowest in four years. 

In the fourth quarter of last year, around 5,000 general applicants were housed in public rental housing (PRH), an increase of about 1,300 compared to the previous quarter.

Also, the authority allocated around 1,300 new public rental flats in the fourth quarter of last year, with about 800 units in Hin Fat Estate and 400 in Yip Wong Estate, both located in Tuen Mun. 

The number of refurbished flats available for allocation remained high in the fourth quarter, aided by the government's enhanced efforts to combat tenancy abuse and the completion of several subsidized sale flats.

The authority also noted a decline in public rental flat applications, with about 118,600 general applications at the end of December last year -- a 24 percent decrease from the peak of 156,400 cases in September 2020.

Notably, the number of general applicants aged below 30 saw a significant drop, falling by 52 percent from 15,600 cases to 7,600 cases.

Ryan Ip Man-ki, co-head of the Public Policy Institute at Our Hong Kong Foundation, said that the reduction in public rental housing waiting time reflects both a decrease in the number of residents waiting for flats and improvements in the turnover of public housing. 

He noted that the number of recovered public flats has been rising over the past decade, surpassing 10,000 annually in the last two years, thanks to the government's efforts to combat public housing abuse.

(Wallis Wang)