THE Consumer Council's probe into the workings of the property market should make interesting - probably essential - reading. By the time it comes out early next year, the Government hopes its own market-cooling measures will have begun to work. That may be over-optimistic. However, the Consumer Council will be in a better position to judge whether the Government had misread the signals or allowed itself to be taken in by various vested interests about the longer term behaviour of the marketplace.
Because its main thrust, unlike the Government's recent study, will not be to curb speculation or bring down prices in the short term, the council report should also offer some valuable insights to the prospective home-buyer and the more general reader.
A dispassionate, practical report on how the market functions is long overdue. Most of the information available to the public at the moment is put out by one side or another and reflects the interests and concerns of the developers, the Government, large or smaller real estate agents.
With most of these groups blaming each other for soaring prices, speculation and hoarding flats, it is hard for any outsider to know whom to believe. What the consumer needs is a clear picture of how much land is or can be made available, not only through the release of new commercial land but through redevelopment and urban renewal or allocation of sites for public housing and Home Ownership Schemes. The report must also look at who, if anyone, is hoarding property and how private developers might restrict the flow of flats onto the market.
Provided the consultant the council chooses has the independence as well as the expertise not to be swayed by one particular interest group, any recommendations are likely to be sounder than the hasty, ad hoc measures governments tend to take to meet momentary political needs. Since the Consumer Council is able to take a more independent view than the Government, which profits hugely from the high price of land, it should be better able to brief a consultant to produce a truly independent study.
There are other reasons to hope the council will succeed where others have failed. It is working hard to build up a reputation for toughness in line with it new, more active, high-powered role. And it has already delivered an unexpectedly hard-hitting report on the banks' Interest Rate Agreement. Having lashed out once at the territory's most powerful, entrenched businesses, it can do it again.
