Hong Kong has established low-rent housing estates intended for those less well-off, but now people in the middle class are struggling to purchase their own flats.
Speculative bubbles resulted in huge profit-making opportunities in the past 25 years. However, many of those who purchased flats at the wrong time faced difficulty from late-1998 to mid-2003, when salaries were reduced and the rate of unemployment rose.
In comparison, Singapore’s Housing and Development Board was formed in the 1960s to offer low-cost yet good-quality public housing.
Over 80 percent of the approximately 4.9 million Singaporeans now live in more than 900,000 HDB flats, with the majority of them paying their homes exclusively with savings from the Central Provident Fund.
Property developer Sino Land came to Hong Kong when Singapore offered only limited opportunities. Generally, however, the share prices of Hong Kong-based developers have not done well in the past three years, with Hang Lung Properties as the only company to have risen near its 2007 peak.