Hong Kong’s luxury home prices have topped their pre-Asian crisis peak, data showed yesterday, frustrating government efforts to cool one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets.
Average prices for homes of at least 100m2 are now 14 percent above what they fetched before the 1997 downturn, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said.
The data comes amid fears of a property bubble in the densely populated territory of 7 million and has led some lawmakers to call for a resumption of a subsidized housing scheme due to concerns about the city’s growing income gap.
PHOTO: AFP
Government figures show average luxury home prices in August were HK$142,249 (US$18,300) per square meter, compared with around HK$122,500 before the 1997 crisis.
Overall, home prices plunged about 60 percent in the territory during the Asian crisis, according to government data.
However, the cost of a home has soared more than 45 percent from their trough two years ago, prompting the government to hold about half a dozen sales in the past year to boost supply.
The sales sparked huge interest with Hong Kong’s richest tycoon, Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), snapping up two prime residential sites for about HK$7.61 billion in August.
Earlier this month, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) outlined a fresh batch of measures aimed at cooling the property market, including halting automatic residency for rich property buyers.
The move is expected to affect wealthy Chinese investors, who account for as much as half of luxury homes sales in Hong Kong, stoking claims that speculators are adding to the sharp price rise.
Hong Kong has surpassed New York, Paris and Tokyo as one of the most expensive cities in the world in which to buy an apartment, according to the Global Property Guide Web site.
The site said Hong Kong is the third-most expensive city to buy a 120m2 apartment, with Monaco as the most expensive and London second.
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