Cooling efforts bring no joy for priced-out buyers

Policy measures intended to cool the hot property market have so far failed to reduce housing prices to more affordable levels, say disappointed home-seekers.

"I still can't afford to buy a home. Prices have not shown any major falls since the government measures were announced three months ago," said Andy Cheung, an insurance agent who is renting a two-bedroom unit with his wife and daughter in Tsuen Wan for HK$15,000 a month.

"The asking price of a two-bedroom unit at Discovery Park is HK$4.5 million, which is more or less the same as it was before the measures were announced," said Cheung, who last week viewed a second-hand flat being offered for sale in Tsuen Wan.

Cheung's disappointment comes as no surprise. An analysis of the city's economic performance released by the financial secretary's office last week showed that home prices edged down by just 0.1 per cent in March, and a further 0.7 per cent in April.

Stacked up against falling household incomes, that lifted the first-quarter home purchase affordability ratio - the bite taken out of monthly household incomes by the average mortgage payment - to 56 per cent.

That was a big jump from 52 per cent in the preceding quarter, equal highest in the past 20 years with the rate recorded in the first quarter of 1999, and well above the long-term average of 47.9 per cent.