Introduction
In developed countries, housing conventionally costs three to four times the combined annual incomes of the owners so that virtually all housing is bought or built with finance. With a typical deposit of between 5 and 20 percent of the total price, finance is needed to cover about 80 percent of costs and is usually repayable over twenty years (1999). For most borrowers this debt burden is manageable because, although the finance is repaid at positive interest rates, income growth is likely to be relatively constant and predictable, and the family cycle dictates that most households will have reduced outgoings over time. Unauthorized housing is a universal problem, accounting for about 30 to 60 per cent of housing. Although differences in the ability of low-income households to acquire finance alone are unlikely to explain cross-country differences in housing conditions, the data indicate that while average income in some countries might be greater the availability and type of finance are of critical importance (1999). Housing is profitable business for improved and developing countries. There is an ever growing need for housing facilities because of the increase in population and migration. For a person or organization wanting to start a new business in new market housing is one of the best ventures they can engage in. Housing costs less than other business but can provide considerable income and profits. In lieu of this the paper intends to report on what should be done to build and open a new Housing facility in Hong Kong. The paper will provide details on the housing facility, its probable features and other useful information on housing facility.
Site context and Appraisal
The new housing facility would be located in a 10 hectare property in an urban city in Hong Kong. The housing facility would be constructed near a highway and would be accessible to all types of clients. The housing facility is near business establishments as well as a historical park. The housing facility will make sure that it will provide efficient service to all this will be done through a service process design. In the establishment of a new housing facility, service process design is an important aspect because it makes use of chronological steps to plan and organize people, infrastructure, communication and material components to provide the best service. The Hong Kong government has rules that protect the interest of clients. It makes sure that the housing facility operating in their country has passed tests that will show their willingness to provide service to the clients. The Hong Kong government always checks on the implementation of a housing facility’s service process design, contact numbers are available for clients if they need to complain about the service given by the administrators of the housing facility. The service process design makes sure that the components to provide service will be organized well and will help in providing heavenly experience to the clients. The service process design will help the administrator of the housing facility check for flaws in its service processes. For instance, housing facilities in Hong Kong make sure that it has a working service process design so that they will have a good relationship with clients. The process design helps the housing facility to make sure that the hotel will provide quality services.
The building
Facilities management may be in the hands of a large structured organization that accepts contracts for integrated or specialized facility management. Building asset management must make decisions on how maintenance, repair and renewal should be carried out. This task can be executed by in-house staff, or contracted out on a one-off or permanent basis. Facilities management requires technical and management skills. It also includes leadership functions for co-coordinating an organization’s internal and external relations ( 1998). Throughout the 1990s the construction industry operation has remained labor-intensive despite the labor shortage and consequently high wages. The private building sector had shown little sign of any significant technological advancement. The housing sector was such a context and the incubator for the development of advanced technology and management techniques, to be applied, adopted and adapted by the construction industry at large. There has always existed the need for continued strife for greater efficiency and raising standards (2003).
Housing is now perceived everywhere as a commodity with an exchange value, rather than as a basic need with a use value allocated, as of right, outside the marketplace. The facts concerning the existence of housing markets and their critical role in the provision of housing are indisputable. Individual market transactions are also by their very nature relatively silent, and there is no a priori reason to believe that the housing market is always alive and well ( 2000). The housing market is a sensitive, complex, and largely unknowable entity, subject to fits and starts, unpredictable, merciless, unstable, and almost totally dependent on forces outside itself. It is a valuable and irreplaceable social construct, one that needs to be handled with care; especially since it is the now the repository of vast personal wealth and this great wealth was largely in the hands of home-owning families. Fortunately, many of the housing policies which have ignored the market have been abandoned ( 2000).There is no doubt that each new housing policy must face the housing market take it by the horns, so to speak, and make it behave. There is too much at stake. The challenge then is to understand, limit, and support the housing market in a manner that serves the fundamental interests of society in other words to enable the housing market to work (2000).
Anyone interested in housing policy now has no choice but to confront the issue of housing market performance. A new vision and an effective voice for housing require dismantling the public institutions myopically engaged in the construction and management of public housing. New knowledge-rich government institutions must come into being, agencies that accumulate information about the workings of the housing sector as a key economic sector, monitor the pulse of the sector, understand the effects of the housing policy environment on the sector’s performance, and implement minimal corrective mechanisms to support it in the attainment of realistic social objectives (2000). There is no alternative to articulating market-sensitive housing policies that can better gauge, limit, or support housing activity, and campaigning for their acceptance. Individual actors and institutions in the housing arena be they political parties, government agencies, research institutions, international organizations, non government agencies, professional associations, nonprofit organizations, community groups, builders, financial institutions, landowners, land and housing developers, squatter movements, and dwellers themselves have now attained different degrees of understanding of how to formulate such market-sensitive policies. (2000). Housing is an important policy of the government. Governments are trying to make sure that housing will be once again a solution for people’s basic needs and they are making sure that its use as a profiting tool will be minimized. Housing provides a place for people to stay. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the house belongs to the one living in it. People get a place to live in through either buying a house or renting a portion of somebody else’s property. There are different policies on renting and how a person can allow his property to be rented. To follow government policy the housing facility would feature safety features such as emergency exits and smoke detectors. The housing facility would feature spacious rooms; it would make sure that people can move around freely. The housing facility would feature various unique facilities that fit every need of the client. The housing facility would feature a spacious parking space. The housing facility would be good for the clients because it is near a highway thus it is accessible for clients who commute or use their personal car. Due to its nearness to business establishment it would reduce the client’s travel to their work area.
Research studies
Precedent studies
The key players in housing include landowners, the construction industry, banks, building societies, the financial markets and homeowners, as well as a range of public and other agencies. While none of these has had a consistent influence on housing policy, there have been many examples of such interests influencing the direction of change. Housing policy will generally be implemented through the imposition or alteration of legally enforceable rules and regulations, so it is important to understand how the law affects whether a policy will be successful. Decent housing was recognized as essential to good health more than a century ago, and the concern about ill-health led to the development of housing policy ( 2000). As slum clearance and new build programs brought significant housing improvements, and the focus of health services shifted away from environmental effects towards a medical approach, housing and health policies gradually separated. However, there is now a renewed interest from both sides in the links between housing and health. Poor housing conditions such as damp, mould, condensation and cold persist and can cause poor health (2000).
Changes in housing policy were part of a new approach to public services in general, with the state becoming a purchaser rather than a provider, and competition between independent agencies to provide services under a contract. The complexity of housing issues also inhibits radical revision. Housing reflects and affects the economic and social framework in which it is located. Housing is influenced by demographic, economic, fiscal and social trends, while housing policy changes have their own impact on all of these aspects. Programs designed to deal with one issue often have unintended. The long-term political consensus on housing policy quickly evaporated in the early 1980s, for example, under a government prepared to question long-standing assumptions and goals (1990). Looking into the future is a hazardous exercise, in danger of being rapidly over-taken by events, but any wide-ranging analysis would be incomplete without an attempt to pull out some of the significant threads for the future. Housing debates are beginning to focus on several long-term questions which are predicted to challenge housing policy well into the twenty-first century ( 2001). Housing is a welcome business in Hong Kong. The government has housing policies that does not prohibit housing businesses. The government has a long tradition of affordable social rented housing. It has its own home ownership options wherein people can share the house’s ownership with the landlord. After some time the government introduced a scheme wherein the tenants have the right to buy the property with a discount of 60%. Many housing facilities that were under the local government were transferred to new housing associations. These housing associations have rents that are higher than the council housing. This causes housing issues in the country. The government formed agencies that try to find solutions for the issues in the price of housing and the issues of what organization will have the responsibility for leasing a housing facility.
Brand/market analysis
With the possible exception of true innovations, a target market must preexist if the new venture idea is to succeed. If there is a target market, it is probably already partially satisfied by the offerings of one or more competitors. Who are these competitors? How do they compete? Are they strong, moderate, or weak competitors? How will they respond if the proposed new venture enters the market and tries to capture market share? Questions such as these can help entrepreneurs realistically estimate the percentage of the target market that might possibly switch their loyalties and purchases to the entrepreneur’s new venture ( 1994). It is also necessary to include consideration of any other factors that might further reduce the market potential for a new venture’s product or service. Examples of other factors include legal or environmental challenges championed by competitors, or possible conflicts that the new venture may encounter within the distribution system that traditionally services the target market. Such factors are likely to have a negative impact on the size of a new venture’s market potential, and should be incorporated into this analysis of the portion of the target market that might be available to the new venture (1994).
After the entrepreneur has measured the target market, evaluated the competition, and developed a marketing plan, he or she should attempt to integrate these three components in such a way as to arrive at a realistic sales or market-share forecast for the new venture. The concept is to start with the size of the entire target market, and to realistically reduce that market size to reflect the number and effectiveness of competitors. The more realistic market potential arrived at should further be modified to reflect the effectiveness of the marketing plan. With a near perfect marketing plan, it may be possible for the new venture to achieve 80 to 90 percent of the more realistic market potential. With a weak marketing plan, the new venture might achieve no more than 10 percent of the market potential (2001). Such forecasts cannot be very precise, but they can be realistic. If a marketing plan is expected to result in the new venture’s product/service being distributed in only 60 percent of the outlets serving the target market, then only 60 percent of the more realistic market potential is likely to be available to the new venture. Further, if during the screening and evaluation of the new venture idea, only 40 percent of the members of the target market liked the idea associated with the new venture, then it would be expected that the new venture would be able to achieve no more than 40 percent of he above 60 percent of the more realistic market potential, or only about 24 percent of the more realistic market potential. Incorporating such expected results of the marketing plan into a market potential forecast can result in a more realistic estimate of the market potential that the new venture could achieve ( 2001). The market would involve business people and individuals who would like to rent an affordable housing facility. This market can be a good source of profit since there are many business people/ working citizens in Hong Kong and it has a good number of tourists coming from various countries.
Identifying the Audience
The motivation for tenants to buy their houses has been a mixture of a positive view of the benefits to be gained from home ownership along with a negative view of the consequences of remaining in the council sector. Clearly many tenants can take advantage of large discounts to buy their homes at well below the market value. The 1980s and early 1990s have been a period of considerable change for public rented housing (1997). The government has been successful in its attempts to reduce capital expenditure on council housing and to reduce central and local revenue subsidies. There has been a growing fragmentation of the provision of public rented housing with the role of councils as providers in decline and housing associations, tenant management co-operatives and other forms of rented housing on the increase ( 1997). Privatization has taken place, most notably through the sale of council housing, but also through measures such as the use of loans from private financial institutions in housing association developments and the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) into housing management ( 1997).
Increasingly, the market and its values have penetrated the provision of rented housing, shown most clearly by reforms in the housing association sector, but also by CCT and other changes in council housing management such as the increasing use of performance measurement. There has been increasing involvement of tenants as users of the service in the management of public rented housing through an increase in co-operatives and in other tenant participation initiatives (1993). The motivations of housing managers for involving tenants were a mixture of self-interest and recognition of the knowledge and rights of tenants. Tenant participation was widely seen to lead to a better housing management service and in the long term to make housing managers’ jobs easier by reducing management problems on estates by providing a means of communication to managers as well as changing the attitudes of tenants. At the same time, enlisting the support of tenants was seen by many as crucial to the survival of council housing and, therefore, to the continuance of their own jobs. The balance in the motivations of housing managers between self-interest and altruism was different for individual housing managers and there were variations between different types of authority. In traditional authorities there was less emphasis on the rights of tenants than in the other kinds of authorities (1993). The audience of the housing facility to be built includes the potential clients, the government and the competitors. The potential clients are an audience because they need to see how the facility is built and determine whether the facility fits their standards. The government is an audience because they have to see whether the construction of the facility will be according to their requirements, rules and procedures. The government has to see whether the construction affects safety of the society. The competitors will be an audience because they will observe how the housing facility will be, planned, constructed and how it will be presented to the general public.
Experience Aspirations and needs
Research method
This study employed the qualitative research method, since this research intends to find theories that would explain the relationship of one variable with another variable through qualitative elements in research. The qualitative research method will make use of studies and literatures to determine the available means to measure electricity use (1998). Qualitative research designs in the social sciences stem from traditions in anthropology and sociology, where the philosophy emphasizes the phenomenological basis of a study, the elaborate description of the meaning of phenomena for the people or culture under examination. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical material such as case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactions, and visual texts on the described routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals’ lives. Observation is the most frequent data-collection method used in qualitative research (1998).Qualitative research intends to find theories that would explain the relationship of one variable with another variable through qualitative elements or components in research. The qualitative research is described as multi-method in focus, involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that a qualitative researching procedure acts on studying things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of situations, or interpret events in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
Research Findings
In a place that is well known for its residual welfare system, the co-existence of a strong state housing program in Hong Kong is beyond the understanding of many people. In 1999, 38 per cent of households in permanent housing in Hong Kong rented public flats, 14 per cent purchased public sector built for sale flats, 12 per cent were in the private rented tenure and 33 per cent were owner occupiers in private housing ( 2002). In other words, over half of Hong Kong’s households are currently housed in public sector rental and sale flats of a reasonably high standard. The remainders are in private sector housing, of diverse quality and price ranging from the highly expensive houses in the Peak area to average priced rural houses in the remote New Territories. The housing system is also dominated by geography. Housing 6.84 million people in a built up residential area of only 58 square kilometers, Hong Kong is one of the worlds most densely populated urban. As a result of the terrain, the limited land supply, high land prices, and the locational preferences of the populace, the most intensive form of housing development in high rise flatted blocks has had to be adopted ( 2002). There are many challenges one will face once they decide to open housing facility in Hong Kong. The challenges include the geographical limitations and prices of land. The challenges would be worth it because there are many opportunities and benefits for a housing business. Since Hong Kong is highly populated, it would provide an opportunity for the business to attract clients. Due to the challenges a housing facility would face lesser competition.
Summary
The new housing facility would be located in a 10 hectare property in an urban city in Hong Kong. The housing facility would be constructed near a highway and would be accessible to all types of clients. The market would involve business people and individuals who would like to rent an affordable housing facility. This market can be a good source of profit since there are many business people/ working citizens in Hong Kong and it has a good number of tourists coming from various countries. Housing is a welcome business in Hong Kong. The government has housing policies that does not prohibit housing businesses. The government has a long tradition of affordable social rented housing To follow government policy the housing facility would feature safety features such as emergency exits and smoke detectors. The housing facility would feature spacious rooms; it would make sure that people can move around freely. The housing facility would feature various unique facilities that fit every need of the client. The housing facility would feature a spacious parking space. The housing facility would be good for the clients because it is near a highway thus it is accessible for clients who commute or use their personal car. Due to its nearness to business establishment it would reduce the client’s travel to their work area. The audience of the housing facility to be built includes the potential clients, the government and the competitors. There are many challenges one will face once they decide to open housing facility in Hong Kong. The challenges would be worth it because there are many opportunities and benefits for a housing business.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment