How Hong Kong’s Sky-High Home Prices Feed the Unrest

Hong Kong’s protests aren’t just about freedom and democracy. Widening inequality has long contributed to tension in the city, and nothing exemplifies the divide between the haves and have-nots better than the sky-high cost of residential property. Developers, mostly owned by local billionaire families, wield great market power. Improving housing affordability is seen by both the government and citizens as crucial to easing political strains.

Hong Kong’s real estate has for years been ranked the world’s least affordable. For example, a one-bedroom unit in Tuen Mun in the New Territories -- about an hour by subway from Central, the main business district -- costs the same as a two-bedroom apartment on New York’s upscale Upper East Side. Prices in Hong Kong have more than doubled in the past decade. According to Demographia, it takes almost 21 years of an average household’s entire income to purchase a home, compared with 11.9 years in Vancouver and 8.2 years in London. Renting is hardly more palatable. Rates for apartments in the ex-British colony are higher than for similar-sized dwellings in San Francisco, New York City and Zurich.