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The Hong Kong government will continue to boost land supply in a bid to maintain a healthy property market, providing residential sites good for 30,000 private homes in the new fiscal year, compared with the 20,000 units estimated for the current fiscal year, Financial Secretary John Tsang said.
Despite the recent home price correction in the city, the government would put a total of 47 residential sites on the land auction application list for the next financial year starting April 1, 2012, among which half are new sites, Tsang said in his annual budget speech on Wednesday, adding that these sites will accommodate some 13,500 units next year, and some will include restrictions on the number of flats and their size.
Together with other home supplies including four property projects along the West Rail, three property projects owned by MTR Corp as well as redevelopment projects of the Urban Renewal Authority (URA), housing land supply in aggregate during the coming fiscal year will provide about 30,000 private residential flats, he said.
The housing land supply designated for the upcoming year outstrips the target set by Chief Executive Donald Tsang in his 2010 Policy Address when he pledged that the government would ensure the supply of 20,000 apartments in the city annually in the next 10 years.
“Our resolve to increase land supply and create a land reserve is beyond question,” Tsang said. “...Continue to expand land resources in a multi-pronged manner will facilitate the stable development of our property market and meet the needs for our social and economic development.”
Hong Kong property prices had their first fall in three years in July amid the gloomy global economy and rising mortgage rates. However, prices of prime residential real estate last year still managed to rise by 10.3 percent from the previous year, according to a Centaline report published in late December.
The number of flats from this fiscal year’s land supply stood at between 30,000 and 40,000 units — higher than the real-home supply of some 20,000 units in the 2011-2012 financial year, Midland Holdings Deputy Chairman Albert Wong said.
“Given the shrinking demand in the market, and as developers have become cautious in acquiring new land, the real-home supply in the next fiscal year will still hover around 20,000 units,” he said.
During the current year ending March 31, 2012, the government had or would sell 27 sites for residential use, providing a total of 7,900 flats, including some small and medium-sized apartments, Tsang said.