An empirical study on the effects of land policy on industrial property prices and rental yields in Hong Kong

Abstract

The rapid restructuring of Hong Kong's economy as a result of China's economic reform and open door policy since the late 70s, has led to major shifts in the demand and supply of industrial buildings. These shifts resulted in misallocation of land resources due to various institutional constraints. The land use policies in Hong Kong have been changing since the late 80s in response to such misallocation. This study investigates the impact of these policies on prices and rental yields of industrial properties in Hong Kong. In addition, the impact of economic restructuring on the determinants of industry propel1y prices is also examined.

The open door policy has attracted many industrialists to move their production base across the border to take advantage of the low land and labour costs leaving their industrial buildings in Hong Kong underutilized. Due to statutory zoning and restrictions in the land leases, redeveloping these industrial buildings for other uses is difficult and costly due to multiple ownership and high modification premium. However lease enforcement actions on industrial buildings are difficult and ineffective. The owners of industrial buildings will weigh the costs against the benefits of non-conforming use and decide whether they will leave their industry properties underutilized, use them for non-conforming uses, apply for change of use and pay associated fees / premiums or proceed with a combination of all these.

The empirical results in this study suggest that the benefits outweigh the costs of non-conforming uses of industrial buildings, in particular for office uses. This is evidenced by the fact that industrial property prices were affected not only by the demand for spaces for industrial production but also by other demand drivers not related to the industrial productions in Hong Kong. These demand drivers included volume of re-export and service sector employment. These are demand drivers given the term Non-Industrial-Production Demand Drivers (NIPDD) in this study. Service sector employment is an office demand driver and that office use in industrial buildings is usually the highest valued non-conforming use, therefore the correlation between service sector and industrial property prices is an indicator of the intensity of non-conforming uses.

Since the late 80’s, various changes in government policies toward industrial land use have been implemented with the aim to rectify land resource misallocation. These policy changes can be classified into (1) Planning Control Relaxation: changes that involve relaxation of planning control on redevelopment or conversion of existing industrial properties to other uses, which may involve rezoning of some industrial areas and (2) Use Restriction Change: changes that permit more types of uses in existing industrial properties with or without paying a premium or fee.

The empirical results in this study suggest that, other things being equal, Planning Control Relaxation has a positive impact on industrial property prices while Use Restriction Change have strengthened or weakened the impact of service sector employment on industrial property prices depending on the nature of the policy change. In addition, empirical analysis also showed that only the Planning Control Relaxation could reduce the rental yield of industrial property by reducing the risk premium. The effect of Use Restriction Change on risk premium and therefore rental yield was not significant.

Last year (2010), the government introduced the Revitalization of Industrial Buildings Policy, which further removed restrictions on the use of industrial buildings for production purposes. It will take time to accumulate sufficient data to show the impact of this major policy on industrial property prices and rental yields.