The role of green form subsidized home ownership scheme (GSH) in fulfilling the homeownership aspiration of the public rental housing (PRH) households

Abstract

Home ownership is a dream to many people all around the world. In Hong Kong, “buying a brick” is a life goal for people from different backgrounds including the middle class and low-to middle-income households. However, Hong Kong is very famous for its unaffordable housing price and is one of the least affordable cities in the world. Even the middle class are facing difficulties in buying a property, not to mention the obstacles faced by the low-to middle-income families. Nevertheless, the aspiration for home ownership from the low to middle-income families become very strong that the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) has to take care of such aspiration of the PRH households by providing subsidized sale flats. The Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) is the main subsidized housing scheme to cater for the aspiration for owner occupancy of low-to middle-income households in the past. Yet, the HOS alone is insufficient to solve the keen aspiration from the PRH households. Hence, the Green Form Subsidized Housing Scheme (GSH) was launched in 2016 aimed at addressing the home ownership aspiration of the green form applicant. The PRH households are the main component of the green form applicants. The HA also claimed that the GSH could address the housing need of the PRH applicant at the same time as the GSH is one for one in nature which the successful GSH buyer need to surrender their PRH flat. In theory, a PRH flat will be recovered for every GSH flat sold. Only the GSH can achieve the dual aim among all the subsidized housing schemes. The GSH pilot scheme was very successful. After the review paper by the government, the GSH became regularized. Since then, there is no more official review on the GSH phases afterwards. The GSH 2019 is marked as a warning sign to the HA as there are over 500 nano flats remain unsold for years. It seems that the GSH fail to fulfill the home ownership aspiration of the PRH households. It is a waste of housing resources as the unsold flats are kept vacant until being purchased. The same amount of PRH flats cannot be recovered. The dual aim of the GSH fails to achieve. As the GSH is a special existence, this study is aimed at analyzing how is the GSH perform on addressing the home ownership aspiration and suggestion on improvement will be given. This study first defines the factors influencing the aspiration and then tries to discover the most crucial factor of the PRH households and their views on the GSH by conducting questionnaire. Recommendation will be suggested based on the findings. It is hoped that the HA could really recognize the factors which drive the aspiration and amend the future GSH accordingly.