Why not fight for what you believe in? Hong Kong needs less people, not more homes. Hong Kong is already severely overcrowded & the quality of life is rapidly deteriorating.Original Post Deleted
Why not fight for what you believe in? Hong Kong needs less people, not more homes. Hong Kong is already severely overcrowded & the quality of life is rapidly deteriorating.Original Post Deleted
Wasn't the 250K just an estimate by the press.
From what I can find out the Transport and Housing Bureau have no idea how many vacant flats that city has and no intention of finding out. Obviously it would be an easy thing to find out and publish as a measure to reduce property prices.
Hong Kong has long been a bastion of civil freedom which has attracted people from China and the region to live here. This increased demand from outside has led to significant shortages.
The best way to lower property prices is to lower demand by eroding civil freedoms.
Last edited by East_coast; 11-02-2016 at 08:00 PM.
In your view. But "the market" would appear to suggest that locals want to buy rabbit hutches not real homes. If you look at what sells - it's not what you or I would probably consider to be "higher quality homes". You can, as they say, bring a horse to water but not make him drink...... you can't solve this problem entirely on the supply-side. The demand-side also needs attention!Original Post Deleted
location, location, location. why do people live in cages in SSP when they could live in a real place in NT? this thread was about Sai Kung. To the vast majority of folks in HK, Sai Kung is (thank god) "a long way away". So they don't want to live there. Thankfully for the rest of us who like it just like it is.Original Post Deleted
Further, ideas about increasing the supply of land/flats to such a degree that prices fall significantly is just pie in the sky and would probably be counter-productive to your general aim of improving the quality of life of folks in HK. A huge number of people here have a LOT of money tied up in their homes. For many its the main source of savings. If the value of property falls, those people effectively lose their life savings. How is this going to improve the quality of their lives? Sure, it might make it easier for the young to get onto the housing ladder in the first place, but if all their relatives are broke they get less support than before anyway - it won't help in the long run and would be far more likely to result in civil unrest in HK than just about any other change I could think of.
A huge "mainlander tax" on buying property would probably be far more popular.....
I never understood why people get so protective over "preserving" Sai Kung. It's an absolute shithole. I've lived there for 5 years so I have some experience in what I'm talking about.
Sai Kung absolutely does need better transport infrastructure and, seeing as it is impossible to widen Hiram's Highway, it would make total sense to extend the MTR to it.
Central Sai Kung is so fucking ugly. I wouldn't mind at all it getting razed and some efficient newbuilds replacing it. Community? What community? There's an ever dwindling (thank fuck) enclave of incorrigible old westerners who try really hard to pretend that Sai Kung is some form of remnant of "home" (wherever that may be) and spend every idling moment in one of its 3 or 4 shitty pubs.
The only good thing about SK is the surrounds: the miles and miles of country parks. Personally I can't wait until Sai Kung becomes even more gentrified: it'll flush out those old washed out expats and maybe they'll return "home" one day, whilst the rest of HK keeps growing.
This is the unpalatable problem.
To transfer wealth from the sections of society who have gained from generations of biased policy you actually need to transfer wealth. The investment decisions of their grandparents should not dictate their ability to build wealth.
But you are probably correct no politician is brave enough to reverse 50 years of bad policy