The Federation of Public Housing Organisations proposed lowering the down-payment requirement for White Form applicants buying subsidised-sale flats to no less than 5%, as part of a package submitted ahead of the government’s 2026/27 Policy Address. The federation made the proposals on 2 September, while the Policy Address is due on 16 September.
The proposal does not specify whether the 5% requirement would apply to all White Form applicants or only to particular subsidised-sale housing schemes. The federation also called for a study into allowing eligible first-time buyers who meet a specified MPF savings threshold to withdraw part of their savings to buy a home. It proposed resale and repayment arrangements to balance home ownership needs with retirement protection, although the sources do not set out the threshold, withdrawal proportion, eligibility rules or repayment mechanism.
Federation chairman Andrew Man-ying said end-2024 figures showed that 125,000 people had more than HK$1 million in their MPF accounts. He said the federation believed part of those savings could be considered for home purchases.
Vice-chairman Leung Man-kwong said the idea could draw on Singapore’s provident-fund arrangements for buying homes. Under the proposed approach, only part of the savings would be withdrawn, and an owner who made a profit on resale would have to repay the relevant amount into the provident-fund account.
For the Northern Metropolis, the federation proposed that subsidised-sale flats should have usable areas of at least 33 square metres, with larger units accounting for at least half of each development. It also called for the average allocation of public rental housing to be raised to no less than 10 square metres per person.
Other recommendations included extending the validity of Certificates of Eligibility to Purchase to 24 months. The federation also proposed allowing direct relatives, such as parents and children living in separate public housing units, to apply jointly for subsidised housing under the Green Form. Families that had been waiting for public housing for more than three years should, it said, be allowed to apply for Green Form eligibility certificates valid for no more than 24 months.
The federation further proposed a dedicated scheme to encourage tenants in Housing Authority rental-purchase estates to move, with the aim of speeding up flat turnover. It also suggested giving public housing affluent households an additional ballot number to increase their chances of applying for subsidised housing. The sources do not indicate whether the government will adopt any of the recommendations or include them in the 2026/27 Policy Address.