Policy Address
11. To ensure that the various types of SSFs are affordable for target households, I revised the pricing mechanism in the middle of last year by delinking the selling prices of flats under the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) from the market prices of private residential properties, and adopting the affordability of applicants as the basis while ensuring that at least 75% (up from 50%) of the number of HOS flats for sale are affordable. Taking the HOS flats sold in 2018 and 2019 as an example, their selling prices were pitched at about 52% and 59% of the market prices respectively. Compared to the selling prices under the previous pricing mechanism and based on estimates at that time, the two batches of altogether 9 300 newly priced HOS flats have resulted in “savings” of about $6.8 billion to the home buyers.
12. Despite our significant efforts to adjust the housing policy, we may not have eased the minds of the general public. I hereby set a clear objective that every Hong Kong citizen and his family will no longer have to be troubled by or pre-occupied with the housing problem, and that they will be able to have their own home in Hong Kong, a city in which we all have a share.
