請更新您的瀏覽器

您使用的瀏覽器版本較舊,已不再受支援。建議您更新瀏覽器版本,以獲得最佳使用體驗。

Eng

Hit by unrest and recession, Hong Kong remains king of unaffordable housing

Inkstone

發布於 2020年01月21日13:01

Hong Kong has been ranked yet again as the world's least affordable housing market with social unrest failing to make any meaningful dent on home prices for most of 2019. It is the 10th straight year the city has held that dubious honor and is unlikely to be toppled in the near future.

A family in the city would need to save up for 20.8 years to afford a home in the city, according to the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Study, which ranks 92 major markets across the world based on median affordability scores. That has barely changed from 20.9 years in 2018.

Vancouver came in a distant second at 11.9 while Sydney took third place at 11. Melbourne at 9.5 and Los Angeles at 9 made up the top five most expensive housing markets in the study.

The score was generated by calculating the median house price over median household income, covering the third quarter of 2019, according to the Demographia statement.

"Over the past year, there has been a moderation of house price increases in some of the least affordable major markets," Demographia said in a statement on Monday. "However, the trends were insufficient to materially improve housing affordability."

The latest study shows how Hong Kong's home prices have remained sticky on the upside, reflecting the acute disparity in housing demand and supply which helped fan anti-government protests last year and stoke criticism from mainland media outlets during the spate of social unrest.

"The supply and demand imbalance still exists because supply is extremely limited," said Buggle Lau Kai-fai, chief analyst at Midland Realty. "In the primary market, there is also some kind of limited supply because we expect land sales to be even slower this year than last year."

Some of the city's biggest property developers have offered discounts at new flat launches last year, while the government eased its mortgage rules to support wider homeownership.

Take a look at a brand new 263-sq-ft apartment in Hong Kong:

Hong Kong's economy fell into a technical recession in the third quarter amid its worst political crisis in decades.

Average home prices in Hong Kong fell by a quarter last year, according to an analysis by Ricacorp Properties.

While property analysts have forecast prices to fall by a further 20% this year, any decline from current lofty levels is likely to be short-lived, analysts at JPMorgan Chase said.

Elsewhere, Demographia categorized 31 cities with scores above 5.1 as "severely unaffordable," a list that also includes Toronto, Auckland, San Francisco and greater London.

Below that rung is the "seriously unaffordable" category, which includes Singapore at 4.6. The 10 most affordable markets are all located in the US, it added, led by Rochester, Oklahoma City and Cleveland.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

0 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0
reaction icon 0