This is such a huge thing. One of my relatives worked in the housing authority of the HK government - he said that at any given time at least 50% of the housin

This is such a huge thing. One of my relatives worked in the housing authority of the HK government - he said that at any given time at least 50% of the housing was publicly owned and rented directly to tenants for like 2k HKD (~300 USD)/mo. That's why anyone can afford to live there. Actual property leases are incredibly expensive - in the 10s of millions of HKD. Hong Kong functions as a free-trade market by socializing large parts of its basic economy.