EditorialTime is running short for Carrie Lam to tackle housing crisis
- With just a year left in her term, the chief executive is under increasing pressure to prove that her strategies can deliver the desired results
Making matters worse, the government’s latest land sale programme offers little hope for a boost in supply. There are also calls for more cooling measures and strategies to enhance land supply in the longer term.
It is a grave situation for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her team, who are struggling to deliver better results as their current term enters the final year.
It shows, analysts say, a dearth of readily usable government land in the medium term. Officials are nonetheless optimistic about meeting the annual target output of 12,900 flats, referring to the fact that there would be more than 7,000 units in the first half of the financial year when taking into account non-government housing and redevelopment projects. But it also underlines the reliance on private properties to meet the target.
Many first-time homebuyers are understandably disappointed that affordable housing is still beyond their reach. Unlike the market crash following the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003, the upwards spiral of median home prices is edging closer to the historic high recorded in May 2019, after dropping briefly as the Covid-19 pandemic worsened last year. The suggestion of housing supply shrinking to a 10-year low has only added to concerns.