A study of the impact of high housing price on social sustainability in Hong Kong

Abstract

- 3 - Abstract Housing issue has always been a major problem in Hong Kong. The Government always emphasis that meeting the public’s housing needs is at their top priority. Although they have introduced a number of measures, it has unfortunately failed to solve the problem. Property prices have already deviated from the actual affordability of Hong Kong citizens. Qualified applicants for public housing have been facing increasingly longer waiting times and have been unable to pay for rent; some people had to tighten her belt for mortgage loan repayment; some had delayed marriage because they did not have a private living space; some university students also queued in Public Rental Housing and etc. Both grassroots level and middle classes are suffering from high housing price in Hong Kong. It not only affected people’s well-being, but also triggered political issues like protests and anti-government activities, and resulted in a social disorder. These are all harmful to social sustainable development. This paper will dig out the social impacts of high housing price and use a perception analogy to investigate the influence level of high housing price on different group of people. And it is found that the impact of high housing price varies in different tenure groups.