Hong Kong should reintroduce rent control!
Housing remains a most pressing issue in Hong Kong, despite government efforts to ease the situation.
Ordinary people can’t afford to own a home, but rents are also skyrocketing beyond their reach.
There is a growing clamor for the government to reintroduce rent control measures after the policy was abolished more than 10 years ago.
The city’s grassroots population is deeply affected by the high rent environment. One low-income family said the landlord raised the rent on their flat by 20 percent and, when they said they could not afford it, asked them to move out within a week. “How can we move in such a short period of time? So we were forced to pay the high rent,” one family member told Apple Daily.
However, some people contend that rent control not only runs counter to the city’s free-market principles, but will also work against the people that such a measure intends to protect.
Landlords, for example, may decide not to lease their apartments because of the lower rent. Such a move will further limit the number of flats available for rent, thus pushing up the price.
Some property owners may ask the tenant to pay for the rental of other items such as furniture and appliances, in addition to the apartment rent, as a way to compensate for the lower rent.
For free-market believers, the issue is about the imbalance of supply and demand. The only solution is to increase the housing supply. By increasing the number of homes, the rental price will drop. They insist that artificial measures such as rent control will only distort the operation of market forces.
However, rent control was abolished in 1998 after the Hong Kong property market was battered by the Asian financial crisis.
Residents urge the government to reintroduce rent control as home rents have been rising rapidly in the last few years. Photo: HKEJ
