Recently, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor talked about her vision for housing policy, proposing that the government could consider lowering the down payment and payment thresholds, and at the same time study "progressive mortgages", so that people waiting for public housing can leapfrog to buy a home, helping more citizens to take advantage of rising property prices The free-rider of Hong Kong people has a strong "motivation", and has the motivation to earn more money and fully own the ownership of the unit as soon as possible.
Regardless of whether lowering the contribution threshold can help the society solve the long-standing problem of land and housing, what is more worth considering is whether “everyone needs to buy a home and get on the bus” in Hong Kong, and participate in this “first phase, get on the vehicle, and pay for the property”. ” cruel game?
The mentality of "buying a property is to be motivated" is deeply rooted in the minds of many Hong Kong citizens.
There is a set of assumptions and arguments behind these mentalities:
every citizen must face the housing problem, and this problem is the responsibility of the individual, not the society.
Therefore, if a young man successfully buys an upstairs car, or even a young couple saves the first installment to enter the market, their "home ownership story" should be understood as a success story that makes people cry.
Because they neither rely on government support nor solve their own housing problems.
Such discourse has increasingly become an official advocacy statement, and has even become an indicator of a person's success or failure, the evidence of "motivation" in the mouth of today's chief executive.
When we talk about "buying a house is a manifestation of self-motivation", we are actually praising the value behavior of "self-supporting" in society as a good citizen, because this citizen does not ask the society for additional resources, and at the same time did not become a burden on society.
The question is, why do Hong Kong people inevitably go down the ladder of buying a property by different paths?
In fact, real estate prices in Hong Kong are often fired to an unaffordable level, and many young families have to bear the price of their homes with a repayment period of decades.
If the government simply understands this generation in the way that no home ownership means lack of self-motivation, it only shows that they cannot understand the actual needs of this generation.
Why is one's achievement bound to one's residence?
How many Hong Kong people have given up chasing other dreams?
For details, please read the 299th issue of "Hong Kong 01" e-Weekly Newsletter (January 10, 2022) "
Motivation to Buy a Property": Troubling Government Thinking
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