The smallest unit at Seven Victory Avenue will be even tinier than the 163 sq ft flat - the smallest on Hong Kong Island - unveiled yesterday at the launch of Henderson’s One Prestige development in North Point.
Mark Hahn Ka-fai, general manager of sales at Henderson, said the development is in “one of the most prestigious locations in Kowloon.”James Fisher, director of market analysis and analytics at Spacious Hong Kong, said the current increase in the number of small flats in the city has been spurred by high property and living expenses combined with “stagnant” incomes. He believes it will become a long-term trend as developers reduce apartment sizes in order to provide affordable units.
“It’s just algebra right, solve for X,” he said. “If your income is staying the same and the price per square foot is going up, there’s only one thing left to come down, and that’s the square footage.”
Mike Wong, deputy managing director of Sun Hung Kai Properties, said the new trend of building small flats stems from the fact households in Hong Kong are getting smaller on average.
According to the government’s Hong Kong Domestic Household Projections, the proportion of two-person households will increase from 25.2 per cent in 2011 to 29 per cent in 2021, while five-person households will drop from 12.2 per cent to 9.8 in the same period. The trend appears to be the result of more young people choosing to leave the family home to live on their own or with their partner.
“Upcoming demand for new flats will concentrate on the household size of one people and two people,” said Wong as the company’s released its full-year result on Thursday.
But Sun Hung Kai’s smaller flats would have an average size of 300 sq ft, with a layout designed to maximise space, he said.
Meanwhile, Cheung Kong Property Holdings announced on Thursday the sale of 14 flats in its Yuen Long development, La Maison, worth a total of HK$250 million. The price per square foot for these units are all above HK$10,000. Two of the units were sold late last month, a situation described by the company as “ideal”.
The payment method for the flats will allow stamp duty to be reduced by 50 per cent for nine of its flats, effective from October 3.
“The first-hand luxury market has continued to be buoyant, and we’re optimistic about the development’s prospects,” said Helen Fung, senior sales manager at Cheung Kong Property.
Buyers will need to put down as little as 2 per cent of the property price for their down payment.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Henderson launches more tiny flats in Kowloon
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