When an ordinary middle class is approaching to middle age, one should start to pave the way for retirement in the future. Unlike some western welfare countries, Hong Kong workers have relatively incomplete welfare protection. Therefore, the retirement plan for the middle class must be planned as early as possible, so as not to retire with empty-handed when they are old. Otherwise, they will eventually fall into the grassroots class and wait for the government's welfare relief to support.
During the pandemic, the prevention and control policies have caused the economic downturn, and the business environment is being hurt seriously. Under the negative effects of various unfavorable factors, the property price per square foot has also fallen by about 14%, which it caused the pessimistic sentiment further widespread. Property prices fell, but rents remained stable. Property prices began to stabilize when the property rental returns rose to 3% approx.
The Hong Kong middle classes who choose to stay should try their best to hold 
a self-used properties for retirement even if they are pessimistic to the economic outlook. In the past two years, those investors who underpin bearish view on property and bullish on the dividend stocks have already suffered great losses.
Until now, investors have begun to understand that stock dividends are extremely unstable. HSBC could suddenly stop paying dividends, Towngas suddenly stopped paying bonus shares, and high dividend infrastructure stocks would cut dividends massively. The prices of dividend stocks like the Link Real Estate Investment Trust can immediately plummeted by about 15% after announcing the unexpected fundraising right issues five for one. After this drop, the dividend income of this stock in the past four years was instantly evaporated.
In the past two years, the price of small and medium-sized residential properties has fallen either, but the rent adjustment is less than 5%. Obviously, the rents’ adjustment range is much smaller than the property prices. Therefore, the yield return of holding residential properties is more stable than holding dividend shares.
If you only hold one residential property, you can rent out the property for living expenses after retirement, and then move to the Greater Bay Area to live, or you can consider applying reverse mortgage to make capital arrangement for your retirement life. No matter how you retire, holding at least one residential property can provide security for your future retirement life.
