Letters | The blame for Hong Kong’s housing crisis cannot be entirely laid at property developers’ door

The entrepreneurship of property developers and respect for property rights have helped Hong Kong achieve its status as Asia’s ‘world city’.
Property tycoons have also shown their concern for the community through their philanthropy

Hong Kong protests

Letters

Published: 6:55am, 14 Oct 2019

Why you can trust SCMP

Though I risk downsizing my audience, I must say that while it may be tempting to blame developers for Hong Kong’s housing crisis, this is more emotional than rational.

Firstly, it was free market policies that allowed Hong Kong to achieve its status as Asia’s “world city” – economies that don’t offer protection to investors tend to fall into disarray or stagnate to the detriment of their citizens. Even the central government realised this and came out in support of private property rights.

Secondly, a major portion of Hong Kong’s assets – businesses and property – is owned by conglomerates and other actors based in the city. That has significant advantages in terms of the profits generated remaining in Hong Kong or returning to the city in the long term even if invested overseas.

Thirdly, in itself, developers’ entrepreneurship in pursuit of their supposedly profit-oriented goals – though their ambitions are greater than that – benefits Hong Kong as they devise innovative ways to spur economic growth. Also, the taxes they pay go directly into the public coffers.

Additionally, Hong Kong developers have engaged in extensive philanthropic programmes. For instance, Li Ka-shing has given back more than HK$25 billion through his foundation and shown consideration in his comments towards people on the streets.

In the end, it’s all about balance and this may not have been achieved. It is good to see work being done to address this, as exemplified by New World Development’s recent sizeable land donation. This should help clear misconceptions that developers don’t care about their own hometown. In the end, we can only thrive if the community around us also does.

Jose Alvares, Macau

Golden age of Hong Kong property is over

It has taken months for property sellers to realise that the Hong Kong protests can damage property values more than physical property. Those who are slashing prices today and raising cash are wise. Nobody knows where the bottom of the market is, and the government’s handling of the political turmoil has been poor.

The question for buyers today is whether prices will ever climb back up to their all-time highs when taking into consideration the real reasons behind the protests – the disparity of wealth between the rich and poor.

The golden years of Hong Kong property are over. It’s time to value the city like any other city in China. There is no real reason after these protests for people from the mainland to want to own property in Hong Kong. Expats will eventually leave the city.

Those who believe Hong Kong property is gold might realise soon that this “gold” is also not an income-earning asset but an expense to maintain. Vacancy can ruin Hong Kong’s property market if the protests worsen.

Rishi Teckchandani, Mid-Levels

Government incompetence to blame for housing crisis

Jeffry Kuperus (“Hong Kong government must rid itself of its property addiction”, October 7) does not seem to have a serious idea of how taxation works elsewhere. He fails to highlight the sheer incompetence of the Hong Kong government in administering the sale of land and his solutions are not helpful. The government has had 22 years to change the system, but Kuperus does not directly blame those responsible – a feeble bunch of leaders, chosen by Beijing, who have merely condoned the system.

The only important message is his last paragraph, where he concerns himself with sheltering the underprivileged. The colonial government did a much better job in providing “emergency housing” for many thousands of refugees from China, and now these bureaucrats who have been paid giant salaries can’t, and have consistently refused to listen to the people’s demands. They should all be fired and Beijing should send in a temporary chief executive to help resolve our massive problems. Apparently, there is no one here who can resolve this terribly catastrophic situation.

Richard Paine, Tai Hang

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