Hong Kong Housing Problems and Solutions
Name: Liu Chun Hing Student Number: 201111028H Group: 5
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Content
Introduction——————————————————————–p.3
Problem Discussion ——————————————————p.3-p.4
Plan (Improvement of Housing Policy)————————————–p.4-p.5
Plan (Regulation of Property Developers)—————————————-p.5
Conclusion ———————————————————————-p.6
Reference————————————————————————p.7
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1.Introduction
In recent years, Hong Kong citizen are facing high property prices problem which make them difficult to buy the house. I find that the property prices have increased about 50% from 2008 to 2012. In order to respond to public demands, the government should be responsible to decrease speculation to avoid the appearance of the high property prices and help people to buy their dream house easily.
2. Problem Discussion
There are three reasons which cause high property prices—speculation, insufficient supervision to the developers and the own problems of the businessmen.
Firstly, Speculators may buy houses in a lower price and then resell it in a higher price to earn profits in the short time. They speculate in luxury property which will cause increasing price in the housing market and make people feel difficult to buy houses. Finally, the more speculations appear, the more people will buy expensive flats.
Secondly, Hong Kong can become the world financial center which is mainly due to the laissez-faire economic policy .On the other hand; we know there are some drawbacks of the policy. This may cause insufficient supervision to the developers and lead to the domination of the businessmen in the market finally. Therefore, the public hope to have home ownership to tackle high property prices problem.
Thirdly, the own problems of the businessmen can also lead to the high property prices problem. The developers control the hosing supplies of the market and create a
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market illusion. When the demand higher then supply, they would sell the properties immediately to earn more money. The develops also sell “inflated buildings” to cheat housing buyers, like exaggerating the size of flats which also push up the high property prices.
3. Plan (How to solve the problem)
Improvement of Housing Policy
The government plays an important role in providing housing to the general public. I reckon it is necessary to re-establish HOS to deal with the problem of high property prices now and people not need to buy expensive private housing. The government HOS in the first year , which will provide 10,000 flats and then adjust the quantities of HOS depending on the supply of private property market. In fact, I think that is not enough. The Government has a lot of land, but the majority of these lands sold to private developers for the construction of expensive private residence. Although the government provides more flats, at the same time should also be re-planning and land development. On the other hand, there are a little quantities of “Public Rental Housing” in the society and the applicants need to wait for about 3 years to apply PRH so I think providing sufficient quantity of the Public rental housing to cater for the needs of the public is another good method and I will increase the quantity of the Public rental housing from now 15,000 units per year to 25,000 units in the future.
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Benefits: People can have their own self-occupied properties. The prices of HOS are lower than the luxury properties. People can save deposit easily for buying houses in the future. Working-class no need to rent expensive private flats People’s life quality can be improved because they have extra money to do other thing, like shopping.
Regulation of Property Developers
Legislation is an effective method to limit property developers’ inappropriate behavior to avoid them pushing up property prices. The dishonest developers would exaggerate sales brochures to push up property prices to cheat buyers, like hiding price list or saying that there are limited housing flats. Therefore, I have responsibility to prosecute those developers for dishonest transaction methods and I suggest the government should plan to draft a series of “preventing cheating the buyers” laws this year in order to stop any cheating behavior which harm for buyers’ benefits. Once violating these laws, the property project header will be sent to the prisons at least ten years and will be forbidden them participating in the auction next time. I think new laws will have alert effect for the property develops.
Benefits: It can avoid property developers pushing up property prices. It can prevent buyers being deceiving by the profiteers. It can create a fair market in Hong Kong.
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4.Conclusion
To sum up, I deeply believe our city has serious high property prices problem because of speculation, insufficient supervision to the developers and the own problems of the businessmen. I can sense of the seriousness of the inappropriate behavior of the developers that I have already mentioned before. I believe that the government has responsibility to provide ideal living environment to every city residents. Therefore, CY Leung cannot seem to like the previous government neglect of the housing problem. The citizens live in peace and work happily; Hong Kong society will be harmonious and stable.
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Reference
1. Betty Yund(2008), “Hong Kong’s Housing Policy: A Case Study in Social Justice”, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong 2. SHIH Wing Ching, “Housing Problems Accompanying Urbanization (Hong Kong’s Lesson)”, Centaline Property Agency Limited, from http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/hdw/ihc/pdf/cswcs.pdf
3. HONG KONG : THE FACTS, Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/housing.pdf
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