Some of the affected people might indeed be well-off fatcats with multiple houses, having some water-borne fun “on the merry go round of buy , pay off, sell, and pocket millions of HK$ for years”.
Some however are simply crew who have moved to HKG over the last few years, found that between stamp duty and absurd real estate prices even on ARAPA/BOAS they couldn’t afford to buy anything decent, and so they tried to buy a boat to live on instead, pouring in a substantial amount of their own money in the process. They now face possible bankruptcy, victims of HKG greed and speculation, not examples of it.