Real estate market
Written by: Huang Haolin
2021-03-01 17:30
The last update date: 2021-03-01 17:32
The Legislative Council Secretariat today (1st) published a "Research Briefing" entitled "The Impact of Home Ownership on Hong Kong's Social Economy".
The report mentioned that the rate of home ownership in Hong Kong has hit a 20-year low. Among them, the proportion of young generation owners under 35 has shrunk sharply from 22.1% in 1997 to less than 8% in 2019; as for the average age of first-time home buyers, it has also been postponed to less than 8% in 2019. 44 years old.
Property prices soared four times, home ownership ratio fell below 8%
The report pointed out that home ownership can bring obvious benefits to society, including fostering a sense of social belonging and promoting social and political stability.
However, property prices in Hong Kong have soared nearly four times in the past fifteen years (2004-2019), but the home ownership ratio has fallen to 49.8% in 2019, the lowest in two decades, although it has risen slightly to 51.2 in late 2020. %, which is still far below the 60% level of the affluent economy.
In addition, the heads of households who own their homes are gradually leaning towards the elderly.
The proportion of young people under the age of 35 in the overall homeownership has shrunk sharply from 22.1% in 1997 to 7.6% in 2019.
On the contrary, in 2019, elderly household heads aged 60 and above accounted for 41% of the relevant proportion, which is a double of the 21% in 1997.
At the same time, in 2019, about 112,000 elderly households with assets were living below the poverty line, which is equivalent to one-fifth of the elderly household heads living in self-owned units.
Some people think that this represents insufficient retirement protection.
Two-thirds of the owner's supply of the property can be purchased more
In addition, as many as two-thirds of local landlords have paid off their mortgage loans in 2016, which means that they have strong purchasing power and can purchase additional units as second homes for their children or as investment properties for rent collection. The distribution of wealth across generations constitutes an impact.
As for the distribution of household tenancy rights, significant changes have also occurred.
From 2009 to 2019, the number of tenants in public or private housing increased the most.
This is in sharp contrast with the largest corresponding increase from 1997 to 2008, which came from homeowners.
Newly-added private buildings are mostly held by investors
From 2009 to 2019, most of the net increase in private property units was held by investors and leased to tenants instead of self-occupation.
Although ordinary tenants can also work hard to save for home purchases, their wages alone make it more difficult to compete with other buyers in the property market. This has a knock-on effect on social mobility.
In the medium and long term, it is still challenging to increase the home ownership ratio. The government's private housing completion target for the next ten years is only 12,900 units per year, which is lower than the actual completion of 13,500 units from 2010 to 2019.
There is still a long way to go between the overall number of houses available for sale and social demand.
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Housing Policy of the Legislative Council Secretariat
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