Hong Kong public rental housing waiting time creeps up to 4.8 years

By the end of June, Hong Kong's average waiting time for public rental housing has risen to 4.8 years, according to the government. The Housing Bureau reported a slight increase of 0.1 years compared to the previous quarter. The overall figure remains relatively low, at 0.1 years less than the peak of 6.1 years prior to the current administration.

This increase is attributed to more flats being allocated in urban and extended urban areas, where wait times are usually longer than in the New Territories, according to the bureau. The housing authority noted that fluctuations in the average wait time indicate a positive sign, showing the government's efforts to tackle the long-standing backlog of waiting cases.

The spokesperson mentioned that the average wait time for public rental housing (PRH) and Light Public Housing (LPH) will trend positively in the long run. The government aims to reduce the average wait to 4.5 years by 2026-27. The Light Public Housing scheme, introduced in 2022, has a significantly shorter wait time for units, with applicants in the New Territories waiting about two years on average, compared to six years for PRH flats in urban areas.

The bureau encouraged family applicants to choose LPH units to cut their wait. As of June, there were approximately 100,500 general applications for PRH, down from 156,400 in 2020, with non-elderly one-person applicants dropping from 143,700 to 81,000, indicating a reduction in the PRH waiting queue. The city's housing authority increased rent by 2.04 percent last month, following the Hong Kong Housing Society's 2.85 percent increase.

Around 30 percent of Hong Kong's population resides in public rental housing, and addressing the city's housing shortage is a priority for Chief Executive John Lee, who was instructed by China's Xi Jinping to solve the city's housing shortage during a 2022 visit.