In an ambitious plan he has pledged to build at least 100,000 public rental housing (PRH) units over the five years starting from 2018. There is a severe shortage of affordable housing in Hong Kong, with many locals priced out of the market.
He also plans to further relax restrictions on wholesale conversion of industrial buildings as this provides financial incentives to landlords, which helps increase commercial and residential land supply shortly, and to put forward land reclamation plans.
Property consultants Knight Frank welcomed the broad outline of the plan for the long term but said that residential supply is still expected to lag behind demand in the near future. The local residential market is expected to experience only limited impact in the short term.
It predicts that home prices are set to remain stable with upward or downward movements within 5% this year.
Alnwick Chan, executive director at Knight Frank in Hong Kong said that the government
