Richard Wong

The View | Sell off public housing at affordable prices to help Hongkongers achieve their home-ownership dream

Richard Wong says allowing public housing to dominate in Hong Kong has a detrimental effect on economic prosperity, social cohesion and political inclusiveness and should not be our ultimate goal

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A man and a woman look out on residential buildings at Kai Ching Estate in Kai Tak. Hong Kong’s “housing ladder” allowing young adults to start with public housing and work towards homeownership has broken, thanks to out-of-control rent increases and especially high down-payment requirements. Photo: Felix Wong

Richard Wong

Published: 12:14pm, 29 May 2018Updated: 10:55pm, 29 May 2018

People intuitively understand that building more private homes would not address Hong Kong’s immediate housing woes, for two reasons. First, a faster rate of housing production is simply not possible because land is not available at the moment.

Second, high market prices make private homes unaffordable for almost everyone. Building, say, 30,000 or even 40,000 private units a year is unlikely to make private homes more affordable.

Moreover, 80 per cent of all households have monthly incomes below the eligibility level for either public rental housing or subsidised for-sale flats. Virtually none of them can afford private housing; not even those making HK$60,000 or HK$70,000 a month.

These households represent a very large and diverse group, yet high home prices have homogenised their housing demands into an undifferentiated demand for more public rental housing and cheaper subsidised for-sale flats.

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