Hong Kong raises home resale quota

The allocation was lifted to 7,000 homes.

The Housing Authority’s Subsidised Housing Committee has approved adjustments to the White Form Secondary Market Scheme (WSM) and subsidised flat policies to improve utilisation and turnover, according to a press release.

Starting in the next WSM exercise, the quota will be increased by 1,000 to 7,000 homes. Half of the additional units will be reserved for young families and one-person applicants under 40 under the Youth Scheme, whilst the remaining 500 will go to ordinary applicants. The committee said WSM 2024 was about five times oversubscribed, with over 80% of applications from young participants.

To prevent unfilled allocations, the authority will issue more approval letters than available units in future exercises, as 15–20% of successful applicants in recent rounds did not apply for Certificates of Eligibility to Purchase. Unused quotas will continue to be reassigned to one-person applicants.

The Green Form to White Form ratio will shift from 40:60 to 50:50 in the next Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) sales. The proportion of larger flats in HOS and Green Form Subsidised Home Ownership Scheme (GSH) projects will also increase to attract Public Rental Housing tenants.

The resale restriction period for new subsidised sale flats will be shortened from 15 years to 10 years from the date of first assignment, effective from the next HOS and GSH sale exercises.