Property speculation should be discouraged in any society that cares about it's citizens...it will always end up with most of the property in the hands of a few...read your history books, it never ends well.
Property speculation should be discouraged in any society that cares about it's citizens...it will always end up with most of the property in the hands of a few...read your history books, it never ends well.
You can tell most about a culture/people by how it treats its old.
In Hong Kong, a fair number of its old have to collect cardboard, just to make very basic ends meet. No comfort whatsoever .
Hong Kong should do what Holland is doing, where they house university students in old age homes for free rent. The students help the elderly and do leisure activities etc with them.
Helps develop some human contact ie conscience and awareness of the elderly. The elderly also benefit from the social interaction, enjoying the company.
But unfortunately things like looking after the elderly, and developers providing a % of their development to public housing, is just not how things work in an Asiaphoria mentality. It's about profit, not people.
Last edited by Skyhook; 13-10-2016 at 07:49 PM.
I'm no commie...but there are certain things...water/food/shelter/transport/etc...that warrant heavy state regulation. Let maximum rents be determined by the state...
It sounds radical...but I believe a system that allows wealthy landlords to artificially inflate the prices across the board needs to be stopped...
Put capital gains taxes on properties that are not your primary residence:
- less overseas investment from people who don't live here
- less incentive to leave properties empty purely for capital gains. People will be chasing rental yield instead.
- there would be no additional running costs that landlords will try to offset
This city just doesn't know when to stop.... There doesn't seem to be any restraint. Just an attitude of, more, more, I want more!
It's sickening to see it at this level.
I wouldn't mind so much if wages increased at the same rate that property has... But that isn't the case..
Last edited by Skyhook; 13-10-2016 at 08:01 PM.
I rarely participate in discussions on this site but I tend to read most of the posts here.
@Skyhook I've read a lot of your posts on most threads and you seem to really dislike Hong Kong and rarely do I see you write anything positive about being here.
I wanted to ask, and this is a serious question, why don't you leave?
Determining the rate of housing supply should be taken away from the executive branch of government.
As the only key monetary policy in the city how much land is freed-up to build housing should be in the hands of technocrats not those with vested interests.
The executive branch should set the long term goals for housing e.g.70% home ownership, affordability target, 30m2 per person.
The independent technocratic department should set the target by district and the district councils should convert the land for use.
The current system is far too centralised resulting a cosy relationship between the executive branch and the large businesses it needs to secure votes in the CE nominating committee.
The system is broken so the system needs changing.
HK should adopt Singapore's model... stop selling land to property developers and build more public housing instead at cost + % and implement strict controls over ownership. The real problem with the property market is that there's no choice. The government should just build more public housing (preferably nicer) at cost + a % instead of selling more land to property developers.