Home Ownership Scheme

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The Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) is a subsidised-sale public housing programme managed by the Hong Kong Housing Authority. It was instituted in the late 1970s as part of the government policy for public housing with two aims – to encourage better-off tenants of rental flats to vacate those flats for re-allocation to families in greater housing need; and also to provide an opportunity for home ownership to families unable to afford to buy in the private sector.

Under the scheme, the government sells flats to eligible public housing tenants and to lower-income residents at prices below the market level, with discounts usually between 30 and 40 per cent.^[1] It restricts resale of the units in the second-hand market to other families who qualify or, on the open market, after payment of a premium equal to the updated value of the discount given on the original purchase. As an ancillary scheme, the Housing Authority also entered into arrangements with local private developers to provide property for sale under the Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS).

Between 1995 and 2000, the Hong Kong Housing Society also offered the Sandwich Class Housing Scheme for lower middle class families whose incomes exceeded the Home Ownership Scheme requirements, but still had trouble affording private housing. In 2002, falling real estate values led the government to pause the construction of new Home Ownership Scheme estates.^[2]

The Hong Kong government announced the resumption of the HOS programme in 2011 in response to public discontent over the territory's high housing prices.^[2] A new series of HOS estates were inaugurated in 2017, and more are under construction.