Opinion | No closer to owning a property in Hong Kong

So, you think the government's latest cooling measures will finally make prices affordable enough for you to become a homeowner. Forget it. If you can't afford a flat now, the new measures won't change that. Prices will probably fall some way, but don't hold your breath for a free fall. Yet we all know that only a free fall from the current lunatic level will put homes within reach of those who can't afford one now.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has no intention of engineering a market collapse. Homeowners would go after his scalp if he did that. Besides, a collapse would rob Hong Kong people of one of only two paths to wealth - owning a flat and speculating in stocks.

That's why Leung talks in riddles. He wants to make homes affordable without forcing down prices. How you can square the two I don't know. One way homes are affordable in an overpriced market is if everyone wins the Mark 6 or is bequeathed a fortune by a rich relative.

Even then you must be realistic. A HK$3 million fortune is peanuts unless you settle for something in the remotest parts of the New Territories. But there aren't many of those left. Make it HK$6 million if you want something closer to town. But don't expect anything more than a shoebox.

Forget about a spacious new flat in a good area unless you win big in the Mark 6. You could wait for another killer epidemic like severe acute respiratory syndrome, a shooting war between China and Japan over the Diaoyus, or a property bubble burst. The result would almost certainly be a market collapse. But then, you could be out of a job. No bank would touch you for a mortgage.

I can't afford a flat, I don't have a rich relative, and years of buying the Mark 6 has lost me a fortune rather than gained me one. I returned to Hong Kong from the US just when Sars hit. Prices were in a free fall. I didn't dare buy. What an idiot I was. I have been at the mercy of our merciless landlords ever since.