Hong Kong's average new home size fell from 50.4 square meters in 1995 to 37.2 sq m in 2024, declining 26 percent and hitting the smallest in three decades of records, a report from the Hong Kong Future Economy Institute showed on Tuesday.
The 2024 new homes average size is roughly half of that in Tokyo (66 sq m) or the United Kingdom (79 sq m), while new Hong Kong public flats, measuring about 27 sq m on average, represent a third of the size of new Singapore public flats (about 80 sq m).
Nearly half of the units completed in 2024 were under 40 sq m, compared with only 4 percent in 2000, the study said.
Despite the recovery of Hong Kong property completion from the post-2000 trough, the unit size is shrinking, the report said.
Private housing showed diverging trends in sizes: the share of completions under 40 sq m rose from 18 percent in 1995 to 45 percent in 2024, while that of 70 sq m or above decreased from 26 percent to 11 percent, the study said.
Large private homes have shifted from a mainstream product to a marginal share of new supply, it added.
The average area of public rental housing sharply dropped from 40.2 sq m in 1995 to 26.7 sq m in 2024, down 33.6 percent, and three-bedroom flats disappeared entirely from new production after 2009.
Regarding subsidised sale flats, their average unit size fell from 55.3 sq m to approximately 27 sq m in 2024 - a reduction of roughly one-half.
The study, "Smaller and Smaller: Changes in the Size of Newly Completed Housing Units in Hong Kong, 1995–2024", tracks completions by size band across public rental, subsidised sale, and private housing from 1995 to 2024.
