Along with the worldwide recession, Hong Kong’s economy has been downgraded as well. Due to the economy activity stays slow and the unemployment rises, People become more cautious, making them more reluctant to spend. No doubt any more, the real estate market of Hong Kong has been influenced seriously. Not only families plan to rent smaller house instead of bigger one, even students are not satisfied with accommodation fees any more. Graduate students of Baptist University rallied together in order to push university turning down the fees recently.

Barry Huang, a graduate student in International Journalism of Baptist University has been selected as a delegation entering into negotiation with university. He said, “Now school provides two off-campus accommodation to graduate student, but both of accommodation fee has been charged as hk$2,900 per month which is 100% higher than marketing price under the same space.”

The two off-campus accommodation locate in Kowloon City and Cheung Sha Wan separately. All the apartments are around 400 square foots include three rooms, one kitchen and one bathroom, providing to six students. That means every two students have to share a room and, there are bunk mates. “depending on the marketing price, the same space in the two area just cost around 8,000--9,000 HK$ on average, but school can get approximate price at 18,000 HK$ for every apartment. ” Barry said, “there is some reasons to question the price, and we think we have the rights to ask school reviewing the price policy.”

Barry and his classmates sent an email to housing office of university, hoping school can consider economy environment, dropping the monthly fee from 2,900 HK$ to 2,500 HK$, housing office refused very soon. Then they reported this issue to estate office which is housing office’s higher authorities. Estate office arranged a meeting on the purpose of “collecting opinions from students”, but there was no explicit result of this issue. Apparently, the appeals of university and students could not step into the same direction.

After the meeting, Barry collected more signatures and support from students and sent to President’s office. One week later, the university set another meeting, inviting different departments of university includes Students office, Graduate office involved into this meeting. During the whole process of negotiation, the university focused on “contract” comparing with students’ claim of “human interest”.

Assistant director of estate office, Lee chi wen emphasized “spirit of contract ”during the whole meeting. He said he understood how bad the economy is now, and if he can, he wants to offer more “human interest”, but “contract is contract”, university will not change the price policy during this year. All the students signed the contract with housing office before moving into off-campus accommodation.

After the meeting, Barry felt very sorry. “We of course understand how to obey contracts, but we still can not understand why accommodation fee is much higher than average price outside.” Students hope that university can pay more attention on the issue, at least taking measure to audit all accounts. Further more, the accommodation fee should turn down into a reasonable price.

Rent nearly equals to double market rent
Take Qichengxuan for example. Marketing price for house 400-square-foot away from metro station is less than 6,000 HKD, while Qichengxuan, with an area of 380-square-foot only, charges rent amounts to 2900x4, which equals as 11,600 HKD, nearly double the market rent. According to this, price gap between the rent charged by the housing office from students and the market level is 11,600-6,000, that means more than 5,000 HKD per unit. We may deem the rent fixed between the housing office and the landlord is 6000 HKD, which is sure to be higher than the actual level in view that it is a pack up business. With 17 units each, Qichengxuan and Cheung sha wan have 34 units altogether, then the housing office receives a profit of 5000 x 34, or 170,000 HKD per month. If we rent the house for up to 10 months, as prescribed in the contract, the housing office’s earning is 170,000v x 10, or 1,700,000 HKD. The actual amounts, however, is likely to be underestimated if the present market price is taken into consideration.

According to the housing office, the rent increase from 2600 HKD to 2900 HKD is due to a general house price rise in Hong Kong. But the truth is that the Hong Kong house market has been facing a recession since Mar, 2008.

Dear all,
1. The University provides accommodation on the basis of assuming sole responsibility for profits and losses. The expenditure, which includes rent, inner establishment and maintenance, is fixed according to a whole year’s period.

2. The University signed contract with the proprietor in mid 2008, with a rent clause based on the price level then. So, the rent outside the campus will not be cut down, even if the average rent and price level in the market are reduced as a result of the financial crisis.

3. The University has to afford the expenditure of management for the vacant bed inside campus when provides outside accommodation services.

4. Since the contract is signed by the proprietor, the University and the students, it is binding on all the parties.

If there’s anyone who faces economic or other relative problem, the University may offer proper assistance once reported.