The city’s head announced 1000 more quotas for White Form Secondary Market Scheme (WSM) and adjusted the Green and White Form quota ratio amid heated Home Ownership Scheme Application in Wednesday's policy address.
John Lee Ka-chiu, the chief Chief Executive of Hong Kong, announced a change in the quota ratio from 40:60 to 50:50 between GF and WF to assist more PRH tenants to become owners and transfer the original PRH units to Waiting List applicants.
At the same time, 1,000 more quotas will be given to WSM applicants, with half of the quota for young families and one-person applicants below 40, effective in the next exercise.
“To increase the liquidity of the entire real estate market in Hong Kong. This is a key issue in Hong Kong,” said Dong Ding, the assistant Professor of economics and finance at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Currently, public housing, HOS flats and private housing account for 29.8%, 15.5% and 53.6% of households in Hong Kong respectively in the second quarter of 2025, according to data from the recent report by the Census and Statistics Department.
Dong explained that the government wants to form a circulation chain from having no house to renting, to buying public housing and then to purchasing private housing.
Apart from getting the property market "alive," Dong added that these new policies also target consumer spending. He explained that when housing security increases and people's housing anxiety decreases, consumer confidence will strengthen.
White Form applicants still account for a high proportion of 81% among all applicants in 2022, while Green Form applicants represent only 19%, up from 14% in 2020 and 15% in 2019.
Lai Ting-Long, 22, a Green Form applicant, however, doesn’t feel confident about purchasing HOS flats because the property prices are still too high.
Mentioned the policy as useless for him, he would rather see some more direct preferential policies on housing prices.
Tam Xuan-Song, associate professor of economics and finance at City University of Hong Kong, expressed concern that relying on just one or two housing policies could only temporarily alleviate the problems in the property market, but could not solve the problems of the entire property market.
Tam said that in the long term, whether the housing problem can be solved also depends on whether the overall economy is healthy.
《The Young Reporter》
The Young Reporter (TYR) started as a newspaper in 1969. Today, it is published across multiple media platforms and updated constantly to bring the latest news and analyses to its readers.
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