Internal Vulnerability Analysis and Measures for Private Rentals — COVID-19 in Hong Kong as an Example

Abstract

The private rental housing sector is relatively underexplored due to its limited scale. Most research on the tenancy sector focuses on communal renting and owning tenure methods, with even less research on their vulnerability. As a region with relatively high rents in the world, private rental is one of the main forms of housing in Hong Kong, but COVID-19 has had an impact on the industry. Since the leasing industry is greatly affected by government policies to a certain extent, the policies proposed by the Hong Kong government on private leasing during the epidemic have less impact. Therefore, it is of research significance to explore Hong Kong’s private rental market during the epidemic and propose policy solutions. Therefore, this paper delves into the intrinsic vulnerabilities characteristic of private rentals vis-à-vis alternative tenure rights. It will conduct a vulnerability analysis grounded in the three dimensions of society, economy, and resources, employing the COVID-19 crisis in Hong Kong as an illustrative case study to elucidate the amplification of vulnerabilities during this epoch and to propose pertinent policy interventions. This research seeks to furnish housing administrators with a deeper comprehension of the prevailing issues in the private rental sector, and the policy recommendations advanced during the pandemic are envisaged to make a constructive contribution to the broader field of urban health management.