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Young people across many societies face growing problems in making the transition from the parental home to independent living. Rising house prices and the lack of affordable alternatives to home ownership is most commonly blamed. This paper explores these issues in relation to young people in Hong Kong. The paper argues that the housing question in Hong Kong has distinct local characteristics and cannot be disconnected from wider political and economic tensions. It also shows that the housing choices and views of young people are shaped by more than issues of cost and access. The paper draws on a unique data-set which explores the attitudes and expectations with regard to housing among young people in Hong Kong. Addressing the housing problem is widely regarded as a political priority and essential to maintain social cohesion. However, political imperatives and economic interests are pulling in different directions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The growth and resilience of Hong Kong's public rental sector has occurred in the context of an apparent guiding political ethos of minimal and reluctant intervention. This paper offers an account of why this has occurred. A brief account of economic change and housing policy development over the last three decades is followed by an analysis of changes in the social role and social composition of the tenure. This discussion is complemented by some new data on current popular attitudes towards public rental housing in Hong Kong. The paper then explores various theoretical perspectives to provide an explanation of why it has remained as a substantial part of Hong Kong's housing system and points to the key drivers that will shape its future role and trajectory. The empirical data are drawn mainly from an analysis of five waves of the census and a survey of 3000 adults across all housing sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an analysis of the housing impact of the recent financial crisis in an East Asian context, specifically Hong Kong. In doing so, the paper argues that much of the current political economy analysis in this area has been overly focused on mortgage securitization as the centrepiece of liberal housing finance systems. The paper also shows that an understanding of the limited development of mortgage securitization in Hong Kong lies in the embedded actions of institutional agents. The paper seeks to contribute to ongoing policy debates about the differential impact of the financial crisis on housing markets and to broader theoretical conceptions of ‘residential capitalisms’. In relation to the latter, the aim is to strengthen the East Asian dimension of these discussions and to reinforce arguments regarding the importance of the embedded actions of agents in shaping housing finance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been considerable commentary and analysis on the origins and aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis there have been few studies which focus on the housing markets of the countries most directly affected. This is surprising given the importance of housing investment in many Asian economies and that over-inflated real estate was deeply implicated in the crisis. This paper explores the particular dynamics of the Hong Kong housing market and its institutional structure during the Asian Financial Crisis. The paper focuses specifically on the relationship between the development structure and the shaping of the policy process and on the interconnections between the housing market and the wider economy. It explains the apparent resilience of the giant developers during the crisis. More generally, the paper emphasises the importance of endogenous institutional dynamics in mediating the impact of the crisis in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many studies have found that unemployment has a negative effect on housing prices, the explanation put forward for this effect, that is, uncertainty over the ability to repay long-term mortgage loans, has not been empirically tested. This paper attempts to empirically test this explanation using a cross-city analysis. Singapore and Hong Kong have been chosen because they are both compact cities and are similar in many aspects. The exception is that Singapore has an established system of home financing from the Central Provident Fund, thereby enhancing greater certainty over the ability to repay long-term mortgage loans. Macro-economic factors, including unemployment rate, were analysed from 1993Q1 to 2003Q4 for Singapore and from 1985Q1 to 2000Q4 for Hong Kong. The results show that, unlike Hong Kong, Singapore's rate of unemployment has no statistical significant effect on housing prices. This study has confirmed the financial constraints hypothesis in the permanent income hypothesis study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines selected aspects of housing policy and its influence on private rental housing in Hong Kong. Its ambitions are modest, in part because so little research has been conducted on the sector, as a consequence of the small size of the sector as well as the concentration of socio-political, economic and policy analyses on the other major housing sectors, namely public renting and home ownership. It is argued that a fundamental function of private renting, to provide a functional substitute and counter-balance to distortions in the market for private home ownership, has been systematically undermined in Hong Kong. In spite of its historical importance in meeting Hong Kong people's housing needs, the sector's decline has been steep and it can now be fairly described as a marginalised tenure, despite incomplete structural adjustment post- Asian Financial Crisis. It is suggested that a fundamental reason for the decline of the private rental sector has been the impact of government policy, which undermined the private rental sector and thus an important element of the market mechanism in housing provision. The government's ideology of home ownership has also functioned to transfer lower middle-income families into the owner occupied sector. Although the Hong Kong government has not been as overtly hostile to this sector as governments have been elsewhere, it nevertheless also seems to envisage no real role for the private rental sector in a housing delivery system molded by policy preference for home ownership, rather than fostering viable economic competition by also facilitating an efficient private rental sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hong Kong Government is vigorously promoting home ownership, a major rationale being to increase the community's sense of belonging and reduce the rate of emigration. This paper evaluates whether home owners in Hong Kong have a higher sense of social belonging than renters and finds that tenure status is a spurious independent variable in assessing respondents' sense of belonging to Hong Kong. Logistic regression analysis suggests that the significance of tenure is greatly reduced when other variables, namely age, identity, income and foreign abode right are controlled. The analysis also shows that those possessing a comparatively high sense of social belonging tend to bear the identification of Hong Kong Chinese, be older, have high incomes, and hold no foreign right of abode. Of the control variables, the factor of 'identity' appears most influential. Hong Kong's relationship with China, the uncertain nature of a Hong Kong identity and the territory's economic trajectory as a higher order services economy has meant that housing policy, specifically the promotion of home ownership, is perceived by the government as influencing values and behaviour very narrowly defined as promoting social belonging primarily in a territorial or geographical sense, with wider implications of neighbourhood stability unconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In Hong Kong, the demand for home ownership over the past decade has been phenomenal. Before the economic crisis and the property market slump in 1997/98, house prices in Hong Kong were among the highest in the world. A 'home ownership ethos' was cultivated, in which most people believed that the promotion of home ownership brought prosperity to the economy and benefited individual owners. This paper argues that the existing 'pro-ownership and anti-rental' housing policy does not benefit the economy or many of the lower and middle-income homeowners. On the contrary, it undermines the stability of the economy and widens social inequalities along various dimensions such as class and gender, and between the younger and older generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]