Will Hong Kong’s Starter Homes scheme help young families get on property ladder or fatten the pockets of developers?
In the first of a three-part series on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam’s much anticipated maiden policy speech due to be delivered next Wednesday, young families and housing experts in the city give their verdict on plans for a new subsidised flats scheme to help middle-income households own a home
Yuen Yuk-ting had her life planned out at 26 years old: she would open a bank account with her boyfriend, spend the next four years saving HK$1 million for a down payment on a 400 sq ft flat in Hong Kong, and then get married at 30.
That dream was thrown off track however when she found out she was pregnant last September.
“Having a baby was of course the greatest thing to happen to us, but at the same time, buying a flat just became a lot harder than it already was,” Yuen, now 28, said.
She rents a 270 sq ft flat in Chai Wan for HK$10,300 a month, living with her husband, her eight-month-old daughter, and her mother-in-law and brother-in-law who sleep on their living room sofa.
The family have a combined household income of more than HK$52,000, which means they do not qualify to buy one of the heavily discounted flats under the government’s existing subsidised housing scheme. But neither do they earn enough to afford a flat in the city’s red-hot private property market.
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Yuen’s plight is typical of that seen in middle-class Hong Kong families, many of whom have fallen through the cracks and failed to get on the housing ladder as property prices have spiralled upwards, far outpacing gains in wages in the city.