Government intervention in property market and its public response : a study of stamp duties and other measures in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of government measures on Hong Kong’s property market. Government intervention appeared to describe the involvement and engagement of government in property market. Nowadays, the problems of supply-demand imbalance exist in Hong Kong’s property market, leading to high property price. The government is liable to intervene in the market in order to maintain the stability of economy and society. For demand-side measures, the government introduced three property cooling measures on stamp duty taxation adjustments and successfully stabilized the overheated residential property market. For supply-side measures, the government regularly initiated the role of Annual Land Sale Programme. The resumption of Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) in 2011 also increased the supply of housing to middle-income households and youngers to fulfill their aspiration of homeownership. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect public responses on the above government measures and results showed that most of the respondents supported the above government measures.