Housing Policy
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《HKFEI 2026 Policy Address Recommendations》
Hong Kong has laid a strong foundation for the next stage of growth, but the next policy challenge is no longer about how much more funding, units, land, or platforms to deliver — it is whether these investments actually improve the real choices available to students, families, talent, and businesses. The recommendations propose advancing Hong Kong from a model that prizes inputs and volume to an outcome-oriented, institutionally supported model of governance, with recommendations across four areas: AI in education, housing policy, the Northern Metropolis, and planning and policy-research capacity.
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From Bricks and Mortar to Building a Family — The Northern Metropolis Needs Policies That Help Young People Put Down Roots
The Northern Metropolis promises 500,000 new homes, but the down payment — not the mortgage — is the real barrier for young families. With private home ownership among 30-39 year-olds falling from 31.3% to 23.4% since 2002, HKFEI proposes a four-part Buyable, Available, Winnable, Liveable policy package, starting with reducing White Form HOS down payments from 10% to 5%.
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《Anchoring Talent in the Northern Metropolis: Four Policy Proposals to Help Young Households Put Down Roots in Hong Kong’s New Economic Engine》
We have released 《Anchoring Talent in the Northern Metropolis: Four Policy Proposals to Help Young Households Put Down Roots in Hong Kong’s New Economic Engine》. The study argues that for the Northern Metropolis to become Hong Kong’s new economic engine, it will need more than housing, railways and innovation hubs. It must also attract young working households to move in, become homeowners and put down long-term roots.
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Can Hong Kong’s New Housing Hold People?
In Hong Kong’s housing statistics, one unit equals one unit — whether 27 square metres or 60. This equation has hidden what has truly happened over the past thirty years.
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Two Housing Authority Measures — Directing Units to the Most Suitable Households
The Hong Kong Housing Authority’s two new measures — the Elderly Owner Flat-to-Flat Exchange Plan and the White Form Rental Plan — represent a welcome shift toward making subsidised housing genuinely mobile. The direction is right, but effectiveness will depend on participation, matching, and the Government’s willingness to scale up implementation.
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《Smaller and Smaller: Changes in the Size of Newly Completed Housing Units in Hong Kong, 1995–2024》
We have released Smaller and Smaller: Changes in the Size of Newly Completed Housing Units in Hong Kong, 1995–2024. The study finds that while Hong Kong’s housing supply has shown signs of recovery in terms of the number of units completed, the actual amount of newly added living space has not recovered in tandem. Relying on unit counts alone to assess…
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《Submission on Housing Policy for Hong Kong’s Five-Year Plan》
Hong Kong’s public housing system has historically served not only as a housing safety net, but also as a ladder of upward mobility—from public rental housing to subsidised home ownership and eventually to private housing. It has played an important role in the formation of the middle class, social mobility and economic development. However, following the substantial contraction of subsidised home ownership and overall housing supply after 2002, this housing ladder has gradually broken down. Young people and middle-income households have long found themselves caught in a difficult position: unable to afford private housing, unsuccessful in obtaining subsidised sale flats and unable to improve their living conditions. This has impeded home ownership and asset accumulation while weakening confidence in starting families, having children, remaining in Hong Kong and working towards a better future. The performance of the current housing policy is measured primarily by the waiting time for public rental housing and the number of units constructed. Although these indicators are useful for monitoring basic supply, they do not fully capture the problems that residents actually face. Housing affordability in Hong Kong has continued to deteriorate, the home ownership rate among young people has declined and the average size of residential units has continued to shrink. At the same time, turnover in the Home Ownership Scheme Secondary Market remains low. A large number of subsidised sale flats are subject to restrictions on resale, premium payments and leasing, preventing them from being reallocated according to changing household needs. Some higher-income public rental housing tenants also remain in the system for extended periods because of the lack of an affordable pathway to home ownership. These are no longer merely livelihood issues; they are structural problems that directly affect talent attraction, household formation, labour supply, the allocation of public resources and fiscal sustainability.…
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Northern Metropolis Must Not Repeat Tin Shui Wai’s Mistakes: Public Housing Must Shift from “Rental” to “Homeownership”
As the Northern Metropolis takes shape, the government’s supply-side reforms are unprecedented — yet the market remains cool and the Tin Shui Wai lessons loom large. The authors argue that shifting public housing from ‘rent’ to ‘buy’ is essential to building a stable middle-class community and preventing a repeat of past mistakes.
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From Ladder of Upward Mobility to a Ladder Fault Line — Generational Gaps in Hong Kong’s Public Housing Welfare
Drawing on nearly 40 years of data, the HKU Business School’s Hong Kong Economic Policy Green Paper 2026 reveals a serious ‘generational fault line’ in public housing welfare: younger generations now receive far less public housing support than older generations did at the same age. The authors call for sustained expansion of public housing supply to restore upward mobility for young people.
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2025 Policy Address: The Right Direction on Homeownership Support, but the Effort Falls Short
The 2025 Policy Address rightly pivots from a sole focus on public rental housing toward helping citizens become homeowners and rebuild the housing ladder, but its six measures — from a larger Home Ownership Scheme supply to a modest White Form rental pilot — are too small to break the impasse.
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Tenant Purchase Scheme Stalled — Sandwich-Class Upward Mobility Remains Elusive
Despite growing calls to relaunch Hong Kong’s Tenant Purchase Scheme, the government has once again declined, leaving the sandwich class without a viable pathway up the housing ladder. Three targeted fixes — unit circulation, fair pricing, and retained management — could unlock social mobility for tens of thousands of households.
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Comprehensive Housing Policy Reform — Promoting Homeownership, Rebuilding the Housing Ladder, and Helping Young People Move Up
Hong Kong’s housing ladder has broken, leaving the homeownership rate far below peer economies at about 51%. The authors call for comprehensive reform — expanding HOS, emulating Singapore’s model, and coordinating housing, land, population, and economic policy.
