For months, you’ve watched the building rise up from the dust, floor by floor – possibly imagining your future apartment there. When the show flat is at last revealed, it’s the moment of truth for hopeful home-hunters.

Typically, the first look inside would be a mock-up interior installed in rented premises off-site, perhaps bereft of doors and walls, and sometimes with scaled-down furniture to make the space feel larger.

These days, however, developers are having to work harder to convince prospective buyers that their product does indeed offer the lifestyle of their dreams. Increasingly, that involves engaging high-end designers to finish the job for them.

That’s because buyers have become far more sophisticated and expect to experience their future home in real life, according to Arthur Tang Chun-hey, founder and design director at ARTTA Concept.

“The show flat was always about the wow factor, but just not at the surface level any more,” he says. “Developers are starting to realise that customers want to see something liveable, more realistic [than a mock-up].”

In February 2025, ARTTA completed two show flats at Chinachem Group’s In One project in Ho Man Tin. Both were sold within a month of launch on the market, a result Tang describes as “a record” that, he says, surprised even the developer.

“The feedback was that for both buyers it was love at first sight,” he says of the 600 sq ft, two-bedroom and 1,000 sq ft, three-bedroom apartments. “That’s exactly what the developer wanted to achieve with a show flat in the building: to exude a vibe that is so realistic, it feels like a dream come true.”