When a friendly conversation falls flat

It didn't take long for my friends to start complaining about home prices when we all caught up last week over dinner. Some have been dreaming of their own place for years and wonder if they'll ever be able to afford one.

Coincidentally, across town, the government had just opened the tender for two residential sites in Kai Tak under the Hong Kong Property for Hong Kong People scheme.

The scheme is designed to help local permanent residents become flat owners, and the two sites - the first ones come on stream since Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying launched the programme in September - will yield at least 1,145 homes that'll be restricted to Hongkongers for the first 30 years.

But my friends didn't seem to set much store by the scheme, even though surveyors estimate the land price could take a 10 to 30 per cent hit because of the sales restrictions.

"Theoretically, it is a good move to dampen demand by non-locals, particularly mainlanders, as they are one of the reasons for the property price surge," one friend said. "But 1,100 or so homes is far from enough. There are nearly a dozen of us here who want to buy a flat, let alone in the rest of Hong Kong."

Another friend chimed in: "And it's hard to tell how these 'Hongkonger-only' properties will be priced in the future. They're not likely to be cheap as there's no price restrictions. I'm happy that the pool of eligible buyers will be smaller, what I really want is affordability."