HK to sell 4,000 surplus affordable housing flats

The Housing Authority of Hong Kong will put 4,000 surplus affordable housing flats on sale in June through its Home Ownership Scheme (HOS), at prices ranging from 302,000 HK dollars to 3.28 million HK dollars, the authority announced on Monday.

The flats comprise the remaining stock of surplus HOS flats and those leftover from a special sale exercise which will be completed next month. A 30 percent discount has been applied to the assessed market values.

The income limit for family applicants will be 27,000 HK dollars per month and the asset limit will be 530,000 HK dollars, while those for one-person applicants will be set at 13,500 HK dollars and 265,000 HK dollars.

Applications for buying these surplus HOS flats will be invited in June. Flat selection by successful applicants will start in August.

The Housing Authority also announced on Monday it will continue to allocate the biggest share of the planned public rental housing (PRH) flat supply, at 70.5 percent of the year's provision, to Waiting List (WL) applicants in 2010/11.

A total of 31,100 PRH flats will be provided for eligible families, among which 21,930 flats will go to WL applicants. The target of the PRH project is to maintain the average waiting time at around three years for ordinary WL applicants. (1 U.S. dollar = 7.75 HK dollars)

Source: Xinhua