23rd November 2022 – (Hong Kong) According to the Housing Authority, as of the end of September 2022, the average waiting time for general applicants for public housing flats in the past 12 months was 5.6 years, and the average waiting time for elderly one-person applicants was 3.9 years. In the third quarter of 2022, there were about 11,400 general applications for allocation to public housing, of which about 2,100 were single-person elderly applications. In addition, about 510 non-elderly one-person applications under the Quota and Points System were allocated in the same quarter. The average waiting time for general applicants and elderly one-person applicants decreased by 0.4 year and 0.2 year respectively compared with the previous quarter (i.e. end-June 2022).
The average waiting time recorded a more notable improvement in the third quarter of 2022, mainly due to the availability of more than 10,000 public housing units in the third quarter of 2022. After absorbing the public housing demand of some general applicants with long waiting periods, the waiting time for general applicants who were allocated flats in the current quarter was relatively short, reducing the overall average waiting time. At the end of September 2022, there will be about 135,500 general public housing applications and about 99,100 non-elderly one-person applications under the Quota and Points System.
