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material and structure of which not of top quality, is close to a thousand dollars per square foot.
Another trend is that the floor area of the premises is becoming smaller each day. Except for luxurious flats and villas which are relatively big in size, the construction areas of these premises are mostly from two hundred to four hundred square feet. This runs counter to the policy of building larger public housing units in an effort to improve the living conditions. (The public housing units are calculated on their usable areas excluding kitchen, bathroom and balcony.)
Today when the prices of flats are in this insane state, I dare to say that everybody is secretly worried except the realty developers and the speculator syndicates (including the scattered speculators) who remain complacent. Recently, under the severe criticism of the press, even the authorities feel that they can no longer be partial to the realty developers and believe that should this continue, a great crisis will develop. Hence there is the bill for the extension of rent control for domestic premises. While this bill has not yet been tabled before the Legislative Council and passed, the realty developers have already voiced their objections. Even the small landlords have joined together to take up the same line. Their main reason for objection is that rent control is tantamount to forcing the landlords to subsidize the tenants. It will indirectly slacken the development of private estate and the supply of flats will fall far short of demand.
In fact, these sayings are one-sided reasons stressed on private gains. They are hardly adequate. However eloquently they are put, they arise out of fear that dealings in domestic premises will lose its speculative value and the chances of the prices being pushed higher and higher. Seeing that the bill for the extension of rent control for domestic premises will hinder them manipulating the market freely and obstruct their source of wealth, these people are bound to object.
Actually, the policy for any matter should be mainly based on the principle of 'choosing the lesser of the two harms and the greater of the two benefits.' Nowadays, as the rents of flats sharply rise in step with the feverish state of the prices, everybody is feeling that 'this place is not easy to live.' Even foreigners who reside in Hong Kong are feeling the heavy burden and contemplating living elsewhere. Are the big and small owners of flats setting their mind to force everyone to tighten his belt to bear the difficulty by raising the rents to such unbearable level? From the angle of the overall situation and from the point of view of the economy of the whole community, asking exorbitant rents should definitely not be allowed. In other words, for the benefit of the majority, 'the rich should not be allowed to be cruel.'
The realty developers repeatedly blamed the unjustified skyrocketing prices of flats on the imbalance of supply and demand and labelled the Government as the main culprit, claiming that the incessant rise of prices of flats was brought about by the consistent policy of high land premium of the authorities. Though this is one of the contributing factors, I think, in the final analysis, the slow release of crown land by the Government is only the 'accomplice' and not the 'main culprit'. The main culprit is the collaboration of the realty developers and the speculator syndicates, who intentionally create the 'false impression' of the scarcity of flats.
I must emphasize the buying rush of residential flats is through and through the 'false impression' brought about by the manipulations of 'scalpers'. Many members of the public are spurred by their sensitivity, on the hearing that if they do not buy a flat now, they would not be able to make the same purchase in the future.
In fact, no matter how many new flats are built, through the collaboration of the speculator syndicates and the realty developers, the situation of demand exceeding supply and rising prices of flats will still exist. The reason is simple. Take the case of the Hong Kong Macau ferry tickets. The supply of tickets is originally more than adequate to meet the demand and there is no reason that the supply should fall short of the demand. However, the scalpers of Macau make bulk purchase of the tickets to create the 'false impression' of the scarcity of tickets during some festivals and holidays when Hong Kong residents flock to Macau. The latter, who are eager to get back Hong Kong, would have to reluctantly pay several times the nominal value of a ticket to procure a return ticket. This is a replica of the techniques used by the speculators of flats. From this, one can see that it is impractical to regard the speedy sale of flats after the realty developers have raised their prices as a problem of imbalanced demand and supply.
The fact presented before us is that many premises under construction, especially those named 'Centre' or 'Fa Yuen', are all sold out within one or two days or even a few hours after they have been appeared for sale. This is exactly the hand-in-hand 'masterpiece' of the land agents and the flat speculators. When all flats under construction at a certain site have been sold out, advertisements for selling flats of all sizes under construction at the same site would be immediately put up in the classified advertisement columns in various leading newspapers saying that the selling price would be a few thousand dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars higher than the original price. In such case, you have to turn to speculators for flats unless you have no intention to buy one. This monopolized and speculative practice would not only make the housing problem getting more serious, but would also accelerate inflation, cause unsteady prices, weaken the Hong Kong dollars and disrupt the finance of the whole community. It is outrageous that the authorities do not make a prompt decision in taking restrictive measures.
We have to ask why can't we do the same thing to premises since rice has already been under control. Though rice is vital to us, we can replace it by bread or other subsidiary food when its price is high. However, no one dares to make enquiries about flats when they are expensive. Do we have to
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