Property prices in Hong Kong, the world’s most expensive real-estate market, yesterday reached an all-time high after relentless gains over the past three months.
Home values in the territory broke their previous record set in August last year, making a correction from the middle of last year through January look like a temporary blip, Centaline data show.
The Centa-City Leading Index, which measures values of used homes, stood at 189.42 for the week ended May 26, the highest ever. Prices have risen by 8.6 percent since the beginning of the year.
Home prices have rebounded on revived sentiment around low interest rates and limited supply.
UBS Group AG said last month that the property market in Hong Kong would remain bullish for another decade, thanks in part to the population influx from mainland China.
In some quarters, the demand has never let up.
At Wheelock Properties Ltd’s Montara project in the Tseung Kwan O area, 103 potential buyers have been vying for each unit, making it the most competitive project since 2013, the Hong Kong Economic Times reported on May 10.
It is grim news for those trying to get on the property ladder. Hong Kong already holds the mantle of the world’s least-affordable property market and this will make even basic apartments the preserve of rich people.
A CBRE Group Inc report in April found that the territory has the highest average home price at US$1.2 million, as well as the highest average prime property price at US$6.9 million.
Still, others have more bearish predictions.
Knight Frank this week said that home prices might dip 5 percent in the second half due to the uncertainties from a US-China trade dispute and stock market volatility.
Economist and Harvard professor Carmen Reinhart told a conference in Singapore that the Hong Kong property market is showing signs of a bubble.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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