High-end ‘micro-flats’ latest trend for Hong Kong home buyers

AT a glitzy show stall for a new residential development in Hong Kong, property agents with loudspeakers are promoting the latest trend in the overcrowded city — high-end “micro-flats” which still come with an eye-watering price tag. Hong Kong’s poorest residents are used to making their homes in cramped accommodation, but now developers are touting minuscule upmarket apartments to reel in young middle-class buyers. Although they are part of swish modern complexes, some of the newly-built studio flats measure as little as 177 sq feet and are on sale for HK$1.5 million (RM620,938). Single entrepreneur Mike Ko is typical of the buyers developers are targeting: aspiring homeowners who are priced out of the overheated Hong Kong housing market. Ko currently lives with his parents in public housing and has been saving to buy, but says that current price tags mean he can only afford tiny properties. Agents are selling the pint-sized flats on the basis that the market boom will only continue. “You want to buy now because prices will just go up,” said one agent at the new Mont Vert development in the suburban neighbourhood of Tai Po. “You are saving, in a sense.” Mont Vert boasts a clubhouse, sea views and surrounding greenery — but at 172 sq ft, its smallest units are only three times larger than cells in Hong Kong’s most populous prison. The main space doubles as both bedroom and living room, with a kitchen and bathroom tucked away. Developer Cheung Kong says 10% of the 1,000 apartments on offer are studios, but could not confirm how many of those had been sold. The development is not yet completed, and — despite being a massive investment for potential buyers — there were no show flats, models, or pictures of the interiors of the studio units immediately available. While some prospective buyers are desperate enough to snap up the tiny flats, there are those who are outraged by the conditions Hong Kong residents are having to bear. “They are not only small, it is repressive. You are paying that much to be living there, it’s ridiculous,” Kenneth Tong, a spokesman for local NGO “No Flat Slaves” told AFP. The organisation believes the government is to blame for a lack of affordable homes and being slow to build more public rental housing. There is a “surging need” for cheaper homes in the city, vice-chairman of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Labour Party Fernando Cheung told AFP. “As a result, you see these very small flats that I think could be described as inhumane if you compare [them] ... with units that would be used to house refugees, or even earthquake victims, in other places,” Cheung said. With many larger and pricier flats bought by wealthy mainland Chinese buyers, the smaller homes are targeted at young professionals, university graduates and newly married couples, among others, who are seeking to live independently from their parents and are looking for more reasonable prices, he said. “It’s really mind-boggling to see how the private residential market in Hong Kong has developed to such an extent,” Cheung said. The overcrowded southern Chinese city suffers from a serious housing shortage, with property prices doubling since 2009. Half of the apartments in a quiet neighbourhood to the east of Hong Kong Island measure less than 300 sq ft and are priced around HK$5 million. But developers say they will attract single “yuppies” and young families. “A lot of people who have studied overseas and return love this kind of lifestyle,” said David Fong, managing director of the new Le Riviera tower project, private developer Hip Shing Hong. “In London, even in metropolitan New York, the flat size is both small and old. We are small but beautiful.” he said. “It’s a compromise. Everyone would love to live in much bigger flats if they could afford it,” he said. But campaigner Tong says the demand for tiny apartments is “twisted”, a product of the city’s entrenched desire for home ownership. — AFP This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on August 11, 2014. For more information on Building and Construction seminars, please visit www.asiapacificevents.com