Hong Kong’s young homebuyers set sight on subsidised starter homes in Kowloon East, spurn ‘horrible’ micro flats

Anderson Road quarry site gives hopes to young home seekers eyeing subsidised housing in ‘seriously unaffordable’ city

CK Assets won the bid to develop the site for HK$4.95 billion in a government land tender last month

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A potential homebuyer wearing a protective face mask looks at a scale model of Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats displayed by the Housing Authority in Lok Fu, amid the novel coronavirus epidemic. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 2:30pm, 2 Jun 2020Updated: 6:59pm, 2 Jun 2020

Angela Leung’s dream of owning her first home is coming closer. By her estimate, that will be some time in 2024, when CK Asset Holdings delivers the keys to so-called “starter homes” for young professionals.

Her focus is on a former quarry site in Kwun Tong in Kowloon East, which Li Ka-shing’s CK Asset won at an auction last month for HK$4.95 billion (US$638.6 million). It will be the second such government scheme, since 46 households competed for each unit at the inaugural project in Hung Hom, also in Kowloon, last year.

The site, now under the first-stage development of stones and dirt clearance, will produce at least 1,000 starter homes priced at 80 per cent of market value for middle-income earners, along with some 700-odd private homes.

“I would definitely wait for it,” said Leung, who works in the human resources department of a major bank in the city. “Although the chances of winning one is small, the money I can potentially save makes it worth the while.”