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Wednesday, December 12, 1973
LOAN SCHEME PROPOSED TO HELP CIVIL SERVANTS BUY FLATS
The government was today urged to consider setting up a loan
scheme to assist public servants in the middle income group who are not
entitled to government accommodation or housing allowances, in buying
their own flats.
The suggestion was made in the Legislative Council by the Hon.
Hilton Cheong-Leen who described the scheme as "one way to constructively
stimulate the real estate market."
His proposal envisaged a government loan to meet two-thirds of
any down payment on any flat purchased, and subsequently to lend up to
half of any monthly instalment payments.
Any funds advanced by the government would be charged, subject
to the agreement of the Staff Associations, against the pension account of
the civil servant concerned. The interest rate charged should vary between
five per cent and seven and a half per cent.
"Such a loan scheme using some of the government's surplus funds
would not only bring direct benefit to local people. It would also help
to create more home-ownership and to that extent to reduce over-speculation
in the buying and selling of small and medium-sized flats," Mr. Cheong-Leen said.
The real estate market, he went on, was in a rather inactive state,
and several thousands of recently completed flats were still vacant.
He noted that most of the flat owners preferred to sell rather than
to rent, but the anomaly was that the middle income families who were desperately
in need of such accommodation could not afford the usual 25 per cent down
payment.
/The loan ...........