Watch Above: This average two-bedroom apartment in Hong Kong costs more per week than the average Hongkonger earns.
Hong Kong has the highest concentration of ultra-rich people in the world and over the past nine years it has topped the list when it comes to the cost of real estate.
Sky high property prices mean sky high rents and its driving the cost of living through the roof.
The effect of which is trickling down to all of the city’s residents, with the average rent for a 45 metre square studio in a mid-priced area of Hong Kong now $3,350 AUD per month. Coupled with the median wage per person of $3,000 AUD per month, even modest housing is beyond the average Hongkonger.
Compare that to Australia, where the median weekly asking rent in Sydney is $545 for an apartment and the median weekly wage across the country of $1,019.
In Australia, rental stress is when a low earner spends more than a third of their income on rent, with a 2018 reporting 300,000 households falling under its umbrella.
The circumstance is multiplied in Hong Kong, with large numbers of people forced to cram into tiny spaces.
In Hong Kong, 70 per cent of land remains unused and only seven per cent is zoned for housing. While income tax in Hong Kong is low, every inch of land in the country is owned by the government. To make up its income, the government places a high value on the scarce land it makes available, which continues to drive up the prices.
University student Frances currently resides with three generations under the same roof.
“I want have more personal space to be honest,” she tells Dateline. “But it's hard because we just have three rooms in my house so my parents and my grandparents, and then it is me and my sister.
“For the young generation we feel so angry about it! We need to live and have a safe place for us to maintain our life but the government is just focused on how to earn money in the maximum profit.”
For other university students in Hong Kong, unless you are rich, access to affordable accommodation is virtually impossible. For many youth, the only real option is living with family until well into your 30s.
While countless young people can’t afford to move out of the family home, those who do not have the safety net of relatives to rely on are forced to live in dangerous and often illegal dwellings that are offered at a reduced rate.
Auntie Har has no family and she was recently widowed. The only space she can afford is a rat infested, illegal one bedroom subdivided apartment that leaks whenever it rains.
“The landlord won't repair it for me,” she tells Dateline. “This is an illegal structure and I dare not make this request. He said once you find alternative accommodation, you will have to move out.
“I feel hopeless. I need to move out, but don’t know where to move to.”
The only remaining option for Auntie Har is public housing, but with 30 per cent of the population already calling them home, the waitlist is almost six years. Too long for many of the city’s elderly.
In a city that welcomes the ultra-rich with open arms, Hong Kong now faces the problem of pricing itself out of rich of not just its poor, but its middle class too.
