ong Kong is facing a bubble and the government is ready to introduce drastic measures if necessary, Financial Secretary John Tsang said yesterday, as residential prices in the Chinese territory have surged to record highs. "Hong Kong's housing sector is unusually strong because of loose monetary policy in advanced markets such as Europe and the United States, ample liquidity, super-low interest rates and...
Hong Kong Property Market
Hong Kong has lowered the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for home mortgages and will release enough land to build 6,000 residential units in the July-September quarter, more than double the supply in the previous three months, as it steps up measures to cool the red-hot property market. Apartments valued at between HK$10 million and HK$12 million (S$1.6 million to S$1.9 million) would have their LTV ratios...
The Hong Kong residential property market is on the rise with housing sites fetching high prices in recent land auctions and individual residential developments registering record high transactions, Colliers International Hong Kong (CIH) has reported. But a slowdown in residential sales activity over the past quarter revealed a growing uncertainty in the market. Ricky Poon, CIH’s executive director of...
Hong Kong home sales fell to the lowest volume in more than two years last month as government curbs and rising mortgage rates sapped demand after a price surge since 2009. The number of units that changed hands last month declined 37.6 per cent from a year earlier to 7,635, according to The Land Registry. That is the lowest since March 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The value of...
Prices for luxury residential property in Hong Kong are likely to fall over the next quarter as investors turn to commercial properties after the government imposed harsh measures to cool the housing market, industry executives said. Hong Kong, which has some of the most expensive apartments in Asia and is home to property tycoons such as Li Ka-shing and Lee Shau-kee, has seen luxury home prices exceed...
Hong Kong's property market is facing fresh controversy in the aftermath of the government's new stamp duty aimed at curbing speculation. After a series of aggressive analyst forecasts for property prices in the next two years, it appeared as if the government was spurred into action. But it seems to have pleased no one with its 15 per cent stamp duty on all properties bought and sold within six...
Hong Kong's government on Friday unveiled its latest attempt to cool the red-hot property market, amid public anger at spiralling prices and fears highlighted by the IMF of a real estate bubble. Financial Secretary John Tsang announced a sliding scale of new stamp duties to take effect midnight Friday aimed at restraining what he called "short-term speculative" inflows into the glitzy financial hub's...
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) yesterday warned of increasing risks of a property bubble in Hong Kong amid continued liquidity inflows and rock-bottom interest rates and urged the city's government to take further measures to rein in the booming real estate market. The IMF said that while the city had returned to robust growth, it saw rising inflationary pressures fuelled in large part by soaring...
Hong Kong luxury home prices have exceeded the previous peak of 1997, fuelling speculation the government may introduce further steps to prevent the housing bubble from bursting. Prices of apartments with an area of at least 100 sqm (1,076 sq ft) are 13.8 per cent higher than in the third quarter of 1997, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)said in a slide presentation posted on its website on...
The number of used home sales in some of Hong Kong's biggest private housing estates jumped 90 per cent at the weekend compared to the previous weekend, underscoring optimism that government measures may only have limited impact on home prices. There were 116 deals recorded over Saturday and Sunday at various projects, including Tai Koo Shing in the Island East district and Mei Foo Sun Chuen in Kowloon,...