70% of citizens renew their housing applications due to high housing prices; housing affordability pressure reaches new high

Core data at a glance

❶ Price perception: 69.9% citizens believe that housing prices are too high (down 10.3% from last year)
❷ Market expectations: 42.1% bearish for next year's property market (year-on-year +11.4%)
❸ Property purchase timing: 63.4% believes it is not suitable to enter the market
❹ Housing cost: 60.5%, a heavy burden on households (+8.6% year-on-year)

Increased transparency of survey methods

Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong KongA "dual-track interview" was adopted, through home landline telephone (40%) and mobile phone sampling (60%), and 711 citizens aged 18 and above were successfully interviewed from February 26 to March 11, 2024. The effective response rate reached 61.0%, and the sampling error rate was ±3.7% (95% confidence level).

Three major trends in property price perception (graphical presentation)
│ Viewpoint classification │ 2024 ratio │ Annual change │
├─────────┼───────┼────────┤
│ Too high │ 69.9% │ ▼10.3% │
│ Reasonable │ 22.3% │ ▲7.5% │
│ Too low │ 2.8% │ ▬Flat │

*Expert interpretation: Although the proportion of over-perception has decreased, the increase in bearish expectations reflects the complex mentality of citizens towards policy regulation and the economic environment.

Analysis of property market forecast dynamics

45.61% of respondents are “neutral” TP3T: It is basically the same as last year, indicating a strong wait-and-see sentiment in the market
"Bearish" reached 42.1%: a surge of 11.4% compared to last year, a record high in the past five years
The bulls only have 6.6%, which is 10.9% lower than last year, reflecting weak market confidence.

A Perspective on Housing Cost Pressure

• Compound burden: mortgage/rent + rates + management fees + maintenance fees form a superposition effect
• Distribution of heavy pressure groups:
• Heavy burden: 42.3% (51.2% in urban areas)
• Very heavy: 18.2% (up 4.1% from last year)
• Stress relief group: 37% citizens say the burden is manageable, mostly concentrated in public housing residents market dynamics extended observation
  Policy chain effect: New housing policy launch and interest rate trend affect citizens' predictions
  Imbalance in rent-to-purchase ratio: rental yield in core area falls below 2%, exacerbating wait-and-see sentiment
  Youth home buying dilemma: 81.31% of 25-34 year olds believe that housing prices are too high

Further reading:

• [Losing a lot] Two apartments in East Point City, Tseung Kwan O lost HK$1.8 million in more than three years