It turns out that living in a subdivided flat in Hong Kong is an even shitter deal than we originally thought.
A study has shown that rents and electricity costs for subdivided flats have increased at twice the rate of other small apartments over the past four years.
The Chinese University’s Institute of Future Cities and the group Platform Concerning Subdivided Flats and Issues in Hong Kong have spent the past year collectively surveying rental changes and conducting field studies at more than 100 subdivided flats.
To map the rental and electricity costs of subdivided flats, the researchers created an index based on the Rating and Valuation Department’s rental data, which uses 1999 as the base value.
The cobbled together index for subdivided flats (with an average area of less than 50 square feet) rose from 349.4 to 543.4 – a staggering 56 percent – from the beginning of 2012 to October 2015.
By comparison, the index for normal small flats with a saleable area of 429 square feet or below (classified as Class A units for the purpose of the study) only increased by 21 percent over the same period.
The situation was particularly alarming in October 2014, when the index for subdivided flats and Class A units was at 370.1 and 177.4, respectively.
“The rental increase burden on tenants in such units is much bigger than those who live in normal, small flats. The situation is worrying,” said Edward Yip, associate director of the institute.
According to the Transport and Housing Bureau’s Long Term Housing Strategy’s annual progress report for 2015, the number of subdivided units in private households is on the increase too. Currently, there are 87,600 such dwellings, with a further 76,700 due to be completed by 2020.
Unfortunately, those in subdivided flats are probably going to have to stick it out in their evermore expensive coffins, as the average waiting time for public housing is around 3.6 years, reports the Standard.
