Tiniest Subsidised Flats for Sale

The subsidised flats occupy the former airport at Kai Tak

The Hong Kong Housing Authority's mandate is to provide affordable rental housing to low-income families with housing needs, and to help low- to middle-income families gain access to subsidised home ownership.

That's what it says in its website.

However next year's batch of subsidised homes the authority will sell will be as small as 186 square feet -- the equivalent of one and a half car parking spaces, the tiniest flats to be offered since the start of the Home Ownership Scheme in 1978.

The smallest flats will be 186 sq ft

The 320 small units are on the site of the former airport at Kai Tak, among the 8,925 subsidised flats to be for sale in the first quarter of next year.

About 30 percent of the new batch are smaller than 322 sq ft. Such flats are increasingly making up a bigger portion of the authority's supply, accounting for 22 percent in 2020, and 15 percent in 2019.

Francis Lam Ka-fai, vice-president of the Institute of Surveyors and its spokesman on housing policy said that while he supported the 49 percent discounts on the units, he slammed the micro-flats on offer, saying they had "become a joke".

"That's really undesirable. Why did [the authority] go for such small units? I don't know what their rationale is," he said. "In terms of the design, [anything] less than 200 sq ft is really undesirable for anybody." 

We fully agree.

The tiny flats may look like this. Appealing to you?

And to even qualify for this scheme, a single person can have a monthly salary of no more than HK$34,730 and assets worth no more than HK$925,000, while for households of two or more people, they must earn no more than $69,740 and own assets worth less than HK$1.85 million.

Who wants to live in 186 sq ft discounted HK$1.24 million (US$158,900)? What can you even fit in there? Can someone really live happily in such a tiny place? And they would have to live in it for 15 years before being allowed to sell it. 

If the government wants to encourage a higher birthrate, it really needs to build bigger subsidised flats to start with. How can one even get married let alone have children in 186 sq ft? Have these housing officials even seen how tiny that space is? 

It boggles the mind...