Come next year, the Housing Board will build fewer three-room, four-room and five-room flats after three years of ramped-up supply. Instead, the supply of two-room flats and studio apartments will be bumped up due to varying demand between families and singles for the Build-To-Order (BTO) flats.
Singles were first allowed to apply for new flats in this year's July BTO launch, and there were 58 of them chasing each available flat. The figure went down to 27 for each unit in November 2013. Being a new housing scheme, National Development Minister commented that the application rates for singles would be naturally high.
Next year, 5,000 two-room flats will be on offer for singles - a figure which is almost double the supply this year.
In contrast, the demand from families has largely been met. Three years of bumper BTO launches have cleared most of the backlog from applicants and the housing market has stabilized. There were 2.4 first-timer applicants for each available flat in January, falling steadily to 1.3 per flat in November. As for second-timers, the rate fell sharply from 14.9 to 2.7 over the same period.
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