The following is issued on behalf of the Housing Authority: 

Findings of three surveys conducted by the Housing Authority in the past year to ascertain the extent of property and private car ownership among public housing tenants are released today (Friday).

The Assistant Director of Housing (Policy), Mr Ho Wing- him, said that the findings provided useful reference for the Authority's Ad Hoc Committee on Private Domestic Property Ownership in finalising recommendations in the consultation document on "Safeguarding Rational Allocation of Public Housing Resources" published recently. 

A survey on DR tenants, conducted in the third quarter of 1995, was based on a sample of 1,000 DR paying households randomly selected from the tenancy records of the Housing Department, he said. 

It showed that 42 per cent of the DR paying households, about 14,000 of the 33,000 households in total, owned private properties. Excluding the three per cent who owned non-domestic properties, 39 per cent owned private domestic properties. 

About 9,000 households or 64 per cent of the property- owning DR payers owned one property, 5,000 or 36 per cent own two or more properties. Those who owned four or more properties accounted for seven per cent or about 1,000 households. 

About 34 per cent (4,800 households), 15 per cent (2,100 households) and 12 per cent (1,700 households) owned properties with aggregate capital value between $1.5 and $3 million, $3 to $5 million and exceeding $5 million respectively.

Up to 65 per cent of the properties were still under mortgage. Deducting the mortgage loan from the capital value, the net property value is $1.8 million on average. 
Mr Ho said that the property-owning tenants were mostly long-time residents with elderly main tenants and of large household size. It was found that 53 per cent of the owners were the main tenants' children and their spouses while 42 per cent were the main tenants themselves or their spouses. 

Another survey covered a sample of 2,755 private flats the records of which had been traced by searching the Land Registry records at the end of 1994. 

Sample findings revealed that 13 per cent or 73,000 public rental housing (PRH) tenants possessed private domestic properties. 

Mr Ho said that 75 per cent of the flats owned were owner-occupied and 25 per cent were rented out, and that 62 per cent of the flats owned were under mortgage. 

Mr Ho pointed out that the survey on private car ownership by PRH tenants showed that seven per cent of PRH households were owners of private cars, with 84, 13 and three per cent owned one car, two cars and three cars or more respectively. The ownership rate among non-PRH households was around 13 per cent. 

Car ownership rates among adults (18 years old or over) was three per cent for PRH tenants and six per cent for non- PRH persons. 

Findings indicated that a large proportion of car owners were payers of additional rents, i.e. 21 per cent of the double rent payers, 14 per cent of the one-and-a-half times rent payers, and only six per cent of the normal rent payers were car owners. 

A relatively higher ownership rate was recorded for PRH households living in Former Housing Authority blocks (10 per cent), followed by New Housing Authority blocks (seven per cent) and Mark type and Former Government Low Cost Housing (FGLCH) blocks (six per cent). 

A positive correlation was observed between whether a household owned a private car and its length of residence in PRH. The rate was nine per cent for households with residence of 10 years or over, seven per cent for five years to less than 10 years, and five per cent for less than five years. 

Nine per cent of the cars owned by PRH tenants were large engine capacity of over 2,500cc while the percentage for DR payers was 11 per cent. For cars owned by non-PRH persons, the percentage was 15 per cent.

Seven per cent of PRH tenants' cars were BMW or Mercedes Benz. The percentage for DR payers was 11 per cent and for non-PRH persons was 14 per cent. 
Sixteen per cent Of these BMW and Mercedes Benz owned by PRH tenants are younger than three years of age and fifteen per cent are between three and six years. End
Friday, December 8, 1995