Hong Kong Housing Landscape Navigator 2024
Hong Kong Housing Landscape Navigator 2024
Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF) released its Hong Kong Housing Landscape Navigator 2024, which outlines the latest exclusive forecast of private and public housing supply. In the next five years, annual private and public housing completions are anticipated to reach the Long Term Housing Strategy (LTHS) target, while a continued reduction in the Composite Waiting Time for Subsidised Rental Housing (CWT) is also expected. As the housing supply outlook continues to improve, the time is ripe to shift the policy focus from enhancing quantity to enhancing quality.
Private Housing Supply
Completions in the next five years will be skewing towards the first two years and subsequently tailing off. Despite seeing a record of six failed land tenders in government-controlled land supply in 2023, the impact was partly offset as the development potential of private land bank was released. As land creation enters a “harvest phase”, the Government has a more abundant land reserve and hence greater flexibility to adjust the quantity and pace of land supply. Subject to the disposal success rate for government-controlled land supply, coupled with the pace of taking forward private-initiated projects, the overall trend will remain stable in the next ten years.
Public Housing Supply
Major risk factors affecting short-to-medium term supply have been temporarily removed, including a significant reduction in the percentage of delayed public housing completions to 2% in 2023/24, and completion of Light Public Housing units is also progressing to plan. If construction delays do not reoccur, we are cautiously optimistic about meeting the target, as the CWT is on track to be reduced to around 4.5 years by 2026/27. In the next ten years, it is expected that completions will exceed the LTHS target by 33%. Even under the most pessimistic scenario where site delivery and construction are delayed, the resulting completions will still exceed the LTHS target by 10%.
Beyond Enhancing Quantity
Hong Kong’s housing supply for the past two decades has seen an M-shaped pattern, with subsidised sale flats (SSFs) accounting for only about 15% of the total housing stock. However, nearly 38% of Hong Kong households are eligible for SSFs based on their respective income, highlighting the undersupply of SSFs. Therefore, we propose to increase the supply of GSH in the short-to-medium term. This will create more affordable homeownership opportunities without adversely affecting the waiting time for public rental housing (PRH). Moreover, to provide more incentives for existing PRH tenants to achieve homeownership and surrender their PRH units, the Government should increase the size of newly completed SSFs.
Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF) released its Hong Kong Housing Landscape Navigator 2024, which outlines the latest exclusive forecast of private and public housing supply. In the next five years, annual private and public housing completions are anticipated to reach the Long Term Housing Strategy (LTHS) target, while a continued reduction in the Composite Waiting Time for Subsidised Rental Housing (CWT) is also expected. As the housing supply outlook continues to improve, the time is ripe to shift the policy focus from enhancing quantity to enhancing quality.
Private Housing Supply
Completions in the next five years will be skewing towards the first two years and subsequently tailing off. Despite seeing a record of six failed land tenders in government-controlled land supply in 2023, the impact was partly offset as the development potential of private land bank was released. As land creation enters a “harvest phase”, the Government has a more abundant land reserve and hence greater flexibility to adjust the quantity and pace of land supply. Subject to the disposal success rate for government-controlled land supply, coupled with the pace of taking forward private-initiated projects, the overall trend will remain stable in the next ten years.
Public Housing Supply
Major risk factors affecting short-to-medium term supply have been temporarily removed, including a significant reduction in the percentage of delayed public housing completions to 2% in 2023/24, and completion of Light Public Housing units is also progressing to plan. If construction delays do not reoccur, we are cautiously optimistic about meeting the target, as the CWT is on track to be reduced to around 4.5 years by 2026/27. In the next ten years, it is expected that completions will exceed the LTHS target by 33%. Even under the most pessimistic scenario where site delivery and construction are delayed, the resulting completions will still exceed the LTHS target by 10%.
Beyond Enhancing Quantity
Hong Kong’s housing supply for the past two decades has seen an M-shaped pattern, with subsidised sale flats (SSFs) accounting for only about 15% of the total housing stock. However, nearly 38% of Hong Kong households are eligible for SSFs based on their respective income, highlighting the undersupply of SSFs. Therefore, we propose to increase the supply of GSH in the short-to-medium term. This will create more affordable homeownership opportunities without adversely affecting the waiting time for public rental housing (PRH). Moreover, to provide more incentives for existing PRH tenants to achieve homeownership and surrender their PRH units, the Government should increase the size of newly completed SSFs.
