Hong Kong people are used to living in shoe-box apartments that are no more than 30 square meters, with bedrooms which can fit nothing more than a double bed. With escalating property prices in the past several years, they are getting used to putting up with even smaller living spaces.

In recent months, buyers flocked to snap up apartments of an average 15 square meters each in various housing projects, for an "affordable" price of between HK$2 million to HK$3 million apiece. Real-estate agents said that most of the buyers were first-time homeowners and mostly young couples with no children.

When the first batch of these "mini" apartments went on sale, they were universally derided as "shoe boxes" by the mass media. Some social scientists even denounced the developers for rubbing salt into Hong Kong people's wounds by putting these "toy" houses on the market.

But the overwhelming popularity of mini apartments has proved that the developers were right. Instead of insulting the wallets of prospective home buyers, as many commentators have charged, the developers are helping many young people to hop on to the property bandwagon.

This housing trend in favor of shrinking apartments has not gone unnoticed by home furnishing suppliers and vendors of housing goods. Ikea, for instance, has sponsored a television program to showcase its line of home furnishing products designed to make use of every inch of available space. They seem practical and look good too, at least on screen.

Indeed, apartments in some other major cities like New York and London are getting smaller and smaller. New Yorkers affectionately call them "micro-apartments" - some of which are made of prefabricated modular units, including kitchenettes and bathrooms.

Housing advocates there say that increasing the supply of micro-apartments dedicated to singles or young couples could eventually bring down rents across the city, according to a New York Times report.

Let us hope that the growing popularity of tiny apartments can have the same effect in Hong Kong, where the average housing rental is among the highest in the world.

(HK Edition 11/25/2015 page7)