Analysis of Hong Hong Property Market and Suggested Policies - Thesis Example

(Rovnick 2012). This research essay will look into Hong Kong’s property market in general , its history , its earlier booms and bursts , HK government’s role in planning the housing policy , the reasons for skyrocketing prices of housing in HK , how to overcome the future housing burst and suggested reforms to be introduced in the HKs housing policies with a detailed analysis of HKs housing market scenario and will suggest suitable policy reforms in the sector. Due to its hilly topography, the development of housing in Hong Kong has always been viewed as challenging.

Hong Kong, in the early years, remained as a trading port and hence, housing developments in Hong Kong were concentrated on both sides of Victoria Harbour. In the early days, there was an upsurge in demand for housing due to the continuous influx of immigrants thereby giving rise to the surfacing of tenement building, into which many households were stuffed. After the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, there was an influx of 750,000 refugees immediately following the four years of that invasion in Hong Kong, which deteriorated the scenario of housing in the region.

Due to availability of limited housing and just for a bed space, those who were residing in the crowded tenement building had to pay abnormal rents. Those who could not afford to pay high rents had to take shelter in crude and simple squatter huts constructed upon hillsides or on rooftops. Due to the civil war in China between 1947 and 1949, more than 1, 00, 000 people sought for refugee status in HK and the population of HK was reported to be around 2 million at that time. Due to this, all the present accommodations were fully occupied, and yet more peoples crowded into the spacious quarter provinces on the hills.

It was projected that 300,000 people resided in squatter huts across the Kowloon peninsula and the hills of Hong Kong Island during 1950s. On