Posted by
OffThePeak
12 yrs ago
It depends on the scale and the standard
A house might be over HKD2,000 psf
A low standard flat: maybe HKD1,000 psf
Most would be somewhere in the middle, or so I have heard
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Well, first off, I'm not even sure what you're trying to calculate..
If it's about standard of living, that's a sliding scale based on money. To say that government housing will allow for the same/similar standard of living at 80% off the original cost is probably not accurate..You have to factor in location, environment, etc etc.. It's not a black and white metric.
Ultimately, do I think more public housing will be good for HK? I think so.. It'll alleviate some of the pressures on the secondary market and eat up some of the low end pent up demand. It'll give young couples a chance to get into the market at a more reasonable price point.
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Sure.
That might make sense if land was free, and all the marvelous infrastructure in HK cost naught to maintain.
Are you suggesting that some (privileged) people should pay nothing for their land, while other poor suckers, like me, should pay market price for it ?
If so, then I would see it as an excellent reason to depart from HK, and leave it to the "privileged souls" who want to pay nothing to maintain it.
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hahaha.. I guess if you like communism..
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We already live in a city where a majority of the population are benefiting from taxpayer subsidised accomodation (in many cases not even paying the cost of upkeep, never mind anything close to a market rent) - the minority of us have to pay market prices for our accomodation.
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Let me know when this grand utiopian vision will come to pass so I can cash up and leave the HKSAR for somewhere that offers better prospects
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People always attack the supply side in this argument, when the solution (at least to property prices) could be found on the demand side. Stop the influx of mainland money. People from the mainland buy property in Hong Kong so they can become residents. 40% of sales are from the mainland. That's what is making you live in small flats and work all week. Hong Kong has the lowest birth rate in the world, yet it's people live in cages and the population continues to rise.
Hong Kong has a housing bubble unlike anywhere I have ever seen. The average household income is far too low compared to the average property price. And unlike the US, the people in hong kong actually have real money invested in thier housing. Once the bubble pops, hk residents will lose a lot of real money.......but than you will have prices more in line with incomes.
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haha you dont have to repeat what you are talking about.. It's an obvious stupid idea. If you remove the developers from the equation by removing all their profits, who is going to build the houses? Ok, let's assume the HK Government builds the houses.. does everyone want to live in the exact same house?
Ultimately, your idea/concept here is stupid. Not going to waste anymore time talking about it.
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Googles. Try North Korea.
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Uhh. More than half of HK residents live in public housing already, not sure how much more you want that to be. By removing developers from the equation, you seriously handicap the HK Government's fiscal budget from land auctions and turn one of the only balanced government budgets in the world into a heavy deficit.
Singapore is pretty communist if you ask me. Have you ever been there? I despise it.
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Googles. SCMP columnist Jake van der Kamp has described Singapore as the best example of communism. HK is more free trade oriented though it is, unfortunately, becoming more dirigiste. I still prefer PJ O'Rourke's quote about government power, namely " Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys".
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And googles. I couldn't trust the government to be able to employ more than one architect. It would get bogged down in rounds of tendering with specific government guidelines. The tax payer would of course get rogered by companies doing the tendering. If all the construction companies were state owned, it would be worse that Bristish Rail circa 1974.
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Given that HK's government is run by a bunch of people several of whom have difficulty in complying with HK laws relating to property, any suggestion to give the government more control over the property market can only be viewed as farcical....never mind the idiocy of the proposal.
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Googles. Why not go back to Singapore (also known as teeny tiny town)? If you want to sit at the HK table, you need to buy in. Once the property is paid for, the cost of living here is cheap.
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Ha, ha. Productive ventures? Like Cyberport? How do you know what is productive and what isn't? Keep things as free as possible.
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Loyd isn't talking about free housing, he is talking about free market.
You, my friend, are the one that doesn't get it..
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Sure - lets drop housing prices 80%. We'd have to bail out existing owners, lenders and developers but that shouldnt be a problem. The taxpayers will have no problem footing the bill so long as we impose a stiff exit tax and strong capital controls. We can also reduce the other costs that reduce the amount of capital available for investment, starting with wages. After all, if housing is going to be so cheap then people won't need nearly as much money to live well.
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I've received like 3 warnings from Ed since participating in this thread. I've assumed that this guy is simply trolling, and responded accordingly.
This can't be real talk, can it?
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190k
12 yrs ago
I like googles thinking and as he said he is thinking retrospectively "IF" the govt did this 50 years ago.
Today my idea to decrease demand on property, there should be a capital gains tax of 25% on all property sales by non-permanent HK ID card holders that will help.
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Googles. Stopping sales to non-Residents already exists with public housing and HOS going forward. CY Leung considered building flats That could be only be sold to HK residents but I think it has been shelved. I think it could be challenged under the Basic Law but not sure. All these schemes miss the point. It is HK people who are pushing up prices as there is a lot of money here. If the govt increases deposits on flats to 50pc of valuation/purchase price, they wii just be sold to people with more money. If they bring in rent control, rents will rise as landlords will withdraw properties and demand a bigger premium to rent out flats. If the govt builds all the flats and owns all the construction companies, brickies will be civil servants with pensions etc and taxes will go through the roof. Unless all flats are confiscated and everyone has to live in one large circus tent with one huge publiclavatory, thereis nothing they can do. We have this land sale system until at least 2047. It is extremely unlikely CY Leung can do anything, he can't even appoint a development secretary. The whole of the HK establishment and about 2/3rds of local HK people are gunning for him. That's why he's relaunching his HOS campaign again before the DAB get wiped out in the September Legco polls. I see John Tsang has been wheeled out to make some useless statement about making sure the private market develops healthily. LOL It's so healthy now it could run a marathon in three hours.
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"Yes, I like communism, but this is not communism.
It's people paying for the flat they live in, but not filling the pocket of developers."
I AGREE with you that new properties are over-priced
(I even started a thread about that.)
So what you should do, is do what many here do:
Buy a good secondhand flat, and give no money to a developer.
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"With what I am advocating, people could work 4 days a week with exactly the same standard of living."
You haven't thought it through - What you propose does not work.
Most of the "high cost" is Land premium, and that goes to the government. And those big land premium payments allow you to enjoy a low tax on your income. If you do away with the Land premium, then you will have to pay a higher tax on your income.
Think of HK's high rentals as a form of tax. But at least you have the option of avoiding much of the tax by living "far away" from Central, in some place like Tung Chung, or Tseun Kwan O. Pay the tax, or commute a longer way. What's wrong with that choice?
Or you can leave HK, and live someplace with fewer economic opportunities. Places like Malaysia and the Philippines are much cheaper. Why not try that?
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@walkup6 - for a moment I thought you were going to cite Karl Marx.....
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"What most of them don't know is that they are merely following the nostrums of a long dead economist with no current clout in this world. And here it is Henry George. They are all little Henry Georgists."
Fred Harrsion is a BIG Henry Georgist:
https://youtu.be/_C-Nd_MStxU?si=-SXkFSd_QY8Ty385
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I have heard that too, but I think a house of a better standard can run higher
Since a village house can be sold for anywhere from HKD 3mn to 7mn, and higher, it does show the value of the land, and the permission to build
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Sounds a lot like dealing with a developer.
If the title isn't clean, I wouldn't touch it. There's enough risks out there without taking on an unnecessary one like that.
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I wouldn't buy a village house.
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