〈Asian Post, March 3, 2018〉Homeowners in Hong Kong get all the tax breaks while renters are left to their own devices. Finally, the government may be listening to the latter. But don't get your hopes too high; it may end up benefiting landlords and push rents even higher.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po was telling people this week about tax rebates for renters, saying the government was actively considering the idea, though it wasn't ready to be included in the latest budget.

It's a good idea on paper. Why should the taxman reward property owners over renters? But there have to be proper safeguards, and Chan doesn't seem to want them.

Chan offered few details such as the scale of the suggested rental deductions being considered, but acknowledged the heavy financial pressure from the city's rising rents.

According to the Rating and Valuation Department, the average rent for a private flat of 430 sq ft to 753 sq ft is HK$38 per square foot on Hong Kong Island, HK$33 in Kowloon and HK$24 in the New Territories.

The numbers are among the highest on record. But renters get no tax breaks, and many are complaining.

For those who own flats, the new budget will waive rates for one year, subject to a HK$2,500 cap per quarter. This doubled last year's waiver and will benefit owners of 3.25 million properties across the city.

Our billionaires and multimillionaires hardly need the generosity of the government, but hey, this is Hong Kong.

Chan's excuse for handing no "sweetener" to renters is that to do so would need an updating of the computer system at the Inland Revenue Department, whatever that means.

〈Asian Post, March 2, 2018〉The government will publish all offers tendered for a plot rather than just winning figure - a move that could curb overly aggressive bidding

Hong Kong's land sales are set to become more transparent with the government undertaking to reveal all bids by developers to address long-running concerns about inflated prices and their impact on an overheated property market.

Secretary for Development Michael Wong Wai-lun announced yesterday that, starting from this quarter, the government would publish the tender amounts from all bidders, without identifying them, four weeks after the winning bid for a plot of land was made public.

On another significant note he confirmed the government would launch a scheme this year requiring private developers to build nursing homes for the elderly on some sites to be sold through tender, as part of efforts to tackle an ageing population in a space-starved city.

Under the current system, only the winning property developer's identity and bid price are disclosed, along with a list of other unsuccessful bidders - minus the prices they offered.

"We think it may be a good time to increase transparency of the market," Wong said. "In the past, there were quite some sites where the winning bid far exceeded the upper estimate of the market. In those situations people wondered whether the winning bid was representative of the overall bids received, or whether it was an outlier, with the second or third highest bid falling far behind."

One such case was when mainland conglomerate HNA in November 2016 paid HK$13,500 per square foot for a site in Kai Tak, more than double the price of a similar plot of land sold by government tender in 2014.

〈The Standard, March 2, 2018〉The government needed to stop property developers using opaque sales tactics and stockpiling flats to push up prices amid skyrocketing housing costs, experts said yesterday.

The problems, raised by Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po after his budget speech on Wednesday, have been blamed in part for the city's housing crisis.

Chan said the government would need to manage the property market in a "holistic" way, in the face of claims that it had launched too few initiatives to ease the housing shortage. He said hoarding was "undesirable".

In 2013 the government founded the Sales of First-hand Residential Properties Authority to regulate developers' sales tactics, but critics said it had done little.

Lee Wing-tat, chairman of policy think tank Land Watch, said the authority needed to take action to stop flats being offered to the highest bidder. Under that sales strategy, sellers put small numbers of flats on the market, without an asking price, and let bidders make their offers without any knowledge of other bids.

Lee said the opaque bidding process was problematic because it left "room for manipulation" to push up property prices. He said developers commonly worked with agents, offering them big commissions to sell flats for a certain price and that the process "creates a market distortion".

"Property agents can just tell the buyers that the flat is worth such-and-such a price, and that the value is bound to increase in a number of years. But buyers have no way of knowing if this is true."


〈The Standard, March 2, 2018〉A total of 27 sites - including nine in Kai Tak - are part of the government's 2018-19 land sales program that was announced yesterday. Fifteen plots capable of providing about 11,600 flats were rolled over from the last financial year, while the remaining 12 sites have a capacity to yield about 3,600 flats.

The private housing land supply - from the sale of government sites, railway property development projects, projects of the Urban Renewal Authority, and private development or redevelopment projects - is estimated to have a capacity for 25,500 flats, said Secretary for Development Michael Wong Wai-lun.

For the first quarter of the next financial year, the government will tender one residential site in Yau Tong that can produce about 500 flats.

However, of those 25,500 units, 11,710 apartments are at sites that have not yet completed the rezoning process, according to property consultants. "A typical rezoning will take from one to five years, depending on the land use and relevant procedures," said Chiu Kam-kuen, a vice president Asia Pacific of Cushman and Wakefield.

At the same time, the government said it will also publish the tender amounts of all submissions on an anonymous basis. The amounts were not open to the public previously.

"The new initiative will provide more market information for reference by different stakeholders while ensuring that the tender process is smoothly completed," Wong said.

"It should also serve to address the keen market interest over land tender results," he added.

The property development projects owned by the MTR Corp Ltd at Yau Tong Ventilation Building, Wong Chuk Hang Station, Ho Man Tin Station and Lohas Park are estimated to provide a total of 4,250 flats.

〈The Standard, March 2, 2018〉Wheelock and Company (0020) released a price list for the first batch of its project Malibu yesterday, offering 320 units at the average price of HK$14,347 per square foot.

Ricky Wong Kwong-yiu, executive director of the company, said the price is lower than what was offered at Wings At Sea by Sun Hung Kai Properties (0016) last October.

Units available range from 367 square feet to 801 sq.ft., with prices from HK$6.83 million to HK$15.87 million. The cheapest is a one-room apartment with a selling price of HK$5.36 million.

As much as 21.5 percent discount will be provided by the developer, and there are five means of payment. Wong expects to attract buyers from other districts apart from Tseung Kwan O.

The project in Lohas Park opens show units and accepts tender tickets today from 11am. One buyer is entitled to four unit purchases.

A manager from Centaline Property expects first-hand housing transactions to bounce back to 1,500 this month, from 530 transactions in February.

Raymond Chan, director from Midland Realty, agreed, adding that the launch of this project will pull down second house transactions in Tseung Kwan O in the short term.

Meanwhile, Kerry Properties (0683) said its project at Tuen Mun, Bloomsway, has received the certificate of compliance from the Lands Department, and will start property delivery next week. said Chu Ip-pui, executive director of Kerry.