Top HOS flat gone in just 30 minutes

The most expensive flat priced at HK$4.89 million was sold within 30 minutes as sales of a new batch of Home Ownership Scheme flats started yesterday.

That saw a total of 7,047 flats from Kai Cheung Court in Diamond Hill, Choi Wo Court in Sha Tin, Kam Chun Court in Ma On Shan and Shan Lai Court in Fan Ling put on sale with a 40 percent discount off the market price.

Kai Cheung Court was the most popular, with 68 out of 940 flats already chosen by applicants on the first day, according to the Housing Authority.

Priced at HK$4.89 million or HK$9,738 per square foot, the most expensive flat - Room 3308 at Kai Cheung Court's block B with an area of 502 sq ft - was sold in less than half an hour after the sales exercise started at 9am.

However, flats in other estates received a relatively lukewarm response, with Shan Lai and Choi Wo courts each only seeing one flat sold in the morning, while Kam Chun Court saw two flats snapped up at the same time.

The authority said five flats at Choi Wo Court were sold along with seven in Kam Chun Court and four at Shan Lai Court on the first day of sales.

A retiree, Lee, who bought an upper floor unit in Kai Cheung Court, felt lucky to be successful and said he wanted to match his unit number with his car license plate.

"My family of six currently lives in a 300-sq-ft flat in Sham Shui Po, with a monthly rent of around HK$10,000," Lee said.

"Our incomes were too high to apply for public rental housing but too low to afford private housing, so we could only apply for an HOS flat."

Other than the latest batch of flats, rescinded flats that were put up for sale in previous sales exercises were also popular.

Wong, a resident affected by the redevelopment of Pak Tin Estate in Shek Kip Mei, bought a resale flat from the 2019 sales exercise to live with her younger son and grandchildren.

She purchased a flat on the 39th floor of Hoi Tak Court in Cheung Sha Wan for HK$4.5 million, as it is close to Hoi Lok Court - the same district where her elder son lives.

"I am really, really happy! This is a wish come true," Wong said.

The latest batch of flats was 33.5 times oversubscribed, receiving about 236,000 applications in October.

Although this was the biggest sales exercise since the scheme restarted in 2011, the number of applications was relatively low compared to the 310,000 applications received for the 4,900 flats rolled out in 2019, which was 63 times oversubscribed.