It is difficult for young people to rely on their own efforts to buy a house in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but it is only even more difficult in Hong Kong. According to a statistic from the United States, Hong Kong has been the city with the highest house price in the world for ten consecutive years, and the rent is the most expensive in Asia. For ordinary office workers, if they don't eat or drink, it will take at least 20 years before they can buy a house in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong film and television works, there are also many discussing the embarrassing living conditions of Hong Kong people, such as the 1992 movie "Cage People", the 1997 TVB drama "Genesis", and the 2016 "Ignorant Mind" starring Zeng Zhiwei and Shawn Yue. . And in 2017, TVB filmed the documentary "Everything Is Possible", and the psychology of Hong Kong people buying a house has reached a "crazy" state.
And the house slave movie that is even crazier than crazy is "Victoria No. 1" released in 2010. Peng Haoxiang, known as a ghost director, has always liked to use cult elements such as exaggeration and blood to map the real and crazy real life. In this "Victoria No. 1", these elements are also consistent. Against the background of house slaves everywhere in Hong Kong, the audience will inevitably feel numb after watching it.
To put it simply, "Victoria No. 1" tells the story of an ordinary Hong Kong white-collar worker "living for the house, dying for the house, and fighting for the house for a lifetime". The heroine Zheng Lichang (played by He Chaoyi) is a very ordinary bank operator. She has multiple jobs from 9 to 5. She works hard to save money and makes buying a house a life goal, and she works hard for it. And the real estate she fancy is called "Victoria No. 1", because you can see the sea from here.
In order to save money, she almost tried every means. Outside of her job, she did not hesitate to steal and sell company information to earn extra money, and she did part-time luxury sales at night. If you can save your life, you can save it. You are reluctant to throw away the overnight snack, but eat it as breakfast. Colleagues plan to travel to Tokyo together for the holidays, and she is afraid to spend money and refuses to participate.
However, the money is still not enough, especially when my father is seriously ill. The high cost of surgery means that the down payment that I have saved will be drained. Between the family and the house, she chose the house without hesitation, stepped on her father's body, and used the work-related compensation to get enough down payment. However, before the financial turmoil in 2008, the Hong Kong property market was bullish all the way, and homeowners also took advantage of the situation to raise prices significantly.
So, she finally thought of a way to kill the resident, turn the community into a "haunted house", and then buy it at a reduced price. I have to say, this is a crazy and rational approach. An ordinary house slave used this method to change the housing price of a community. In the end, Zheng Lichang got what she wanted and bought the coveted Victoria One. And this sea view room is not a luxury house, in fact, it is too small to put down the bed and wardrobe at the same time. What's more dramatic is that after the purchase of Victoria One, the financial turmoil came as expected, and Hong Kong's housing prices fell sharply.
However, this short-term drop in house prices has not saved Hong Kong's housing slaves. If the time is longer, then the range of Hong Kong's house prices will only be lowered from July 2008 to March 2009. The overall cycle can be regarded as a super cycle. bull market. Housing prices in Hong Kong have doubled since 2008. Therefore, Hong Kong has been directly pointed by UBS as the city with the highest real estate bubble index among the 20 metropolises in the world.
Bubble or not, it is often just the side of macroeconomists. For ordinary Hong Kong people, having a house of their own is the most important thing. In the TVB property market drama "Genesis", the hit TVB property market in 1999, the protagonist Xu Wenbiao expressed the aspirations of all Hong Kong housing slaves: "It's not that I haven't tried it, I tried to keep myself safe and work hard! Earn so little money! I tried Yes! But none of those people, those people out there! They just take a little money, spend a little time, and keep making big bucks by driving up the price! Is that fair?"
And the "people outside" he was referring to were actually real estate developers who held a lot of available land. Compared with building public housing to solve the housing problem of Hong Kong people, they are more willing to develop the land into private residences, which will get ten times the benefits. The Hong Kong government is actually under the joint control of business tycoons including real estate developers.
First, the Hong Kong government, which advocates low taxes, has been relying on land sales to developers for revenue, which means the government has little incentive to free up land for public housing construction. Another problem is the complex structure of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, where 70 lawmakers vote on how to use the tax. The Hong Kong Legislative Council is often dominated by business groups. In addition, the position of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong also depends on the election of the Election Committee, among which real estate developers have a very high voice, so no one dares to touch this cake.
In fact, after the Hong Kong property market bubble burst in 1997, it was a good opportunity to increase land supply and rectify real estate. In fact, Hong Kong is not without land. In terms of land stock alone, only 7% of Hong Kong's residential land is used. Even taking into account the fact that Hong Kong has more mountains and less land, the existing stock of land is still enough to support Hong Kong's development. It's just that the abnormal land supply and use mechanism, coupled with the ties of interest groups, make it difficult for the Hong Kong SAR government to cook without rice.
Facing the high housing prices in Hong Kong, Tung Chee-hwa issued a "Declaration of War" at the establishment ceremony of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China on July 1, 1997. Tung Chee-hwa's speech covered the core content of the "85,000" plan: no less than 85,000 residential units will be supplied every year; it is hoped that 70% of Hong Kong's households will be able to buy their own homes within 10 years; the average waiting time for public rental housing Shortened from 6.5 years to 3 years.
After two weeks of helplessness, the sudden financial crisis quickly broke through the property market bubble. The Hong Kong government's "85,000" policy backfired and accelerated the decline in property prices. The original plan to increase land supply to make the property market "soft landing" changed. became a "hard landing". Because before the crash, a large number of Hong Kong people bought a house with a down payment of 10%. When the property price fell by 10%, they became insolvent. Banks require homebuyers to make up capital to make up for the loss, otherwise the house will be closed for auction.
So in order to keep their properties from being confiscated by banks, nearly 100,000 people took to the streets to protest the "85,000" plan and demand that the supply be stopped. Facing the pressure, Tung Chee-hwa could only slow down the implementation of the 85,000 plan. Since June 1998, the SAR government has stopped selling land. In June 2000, Tung Chee-hwa admitted for the first time in an interview with the media that the "85,000" housing target has long since been implemented, and therefore "doesn't exist".
Therefore, the housing price in Hong Kong, which bottomed out in 2003, has skyrocketed, becoming a mountain that most Hong Kong people cannot escape. Under the pressure of high housing prices, many people's psychology has also begun to become "distorted", just like the leading actors in "A Building Can Do Anything", they gave up everything else in order to save money to buy a house. The female model in the film said that "there will be a climax when there is a building", which has also become a footnote to the almost fanatical desire of Hong Kong people for a house.
However, today's Hong Kong is no longer the once wealthy Hong Kong, and its pillar position in the financial industry, shipping industry, tourism and other industries has gradually been replaced and weakened by other places. Only the booming real estate industry remains, which seems to be the last glimmer of this business empire. As early as 1998, Tung Chee-hwa said in his policy address: "Over the past years, the financial industry and real estate industry have been important pillars of Hong Kong's economy and will still make important contributions to Hong Kong's prosperity in the future. However, due to the economic foundation of Hong Kong If it is too narrow, once the financial and real estate industries are hit, the Hong Kong economy will be in trouble."
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