It might not be everyone’s idea of a dream home, but for bargain hunters in Hong Kong’s turbocharged property market, apartments that belonged to the recently deceased are proving irresistible — and the more gruesome the occupant’s demise the better.
Popular belief in a city awash with superstition runs that the ghost of a person who dies in unnatural circumstances — a suicide, murder or bad accident — inhabits their home, passing misfortune onto the new occupants.
The threat carries weight in a city where feng shui consultants do brisk business, families placate the “hungry ghosts” of their ancestors with offerings and people even refrain from whistling in the street in fear of disturbing lurking spooks. By law, buyers are entitled to details on so-called “haunted houses” — or hongza in Cantonese — and many rigorously check the backstory to their potential purchase.
Photo: AFP
However, not everyone is afraid of ghosts, and in the cut and thrust of Hong Kong’s runaway property market some investors are actively following the tragedies, aware that dark incidents push the price down.
Discounts of between 20 percent and 40 percent are the standard for haunted houses with a knock-on for the rental yield, said Eric Wong of the squarefoot.com.hk property Web site, which has a channel dedicated to the phenomenon.
“Hong Kong people are sensitive to ghosts and bad luck,” he said. “They believe in feng shui — if something bad has happened in a home people won’t take it ... but Hong Kong is small and very expensive, so if a good discount comes there are others ready to make the investment.”
And for the savvy buyer there are plenty to choose from.
Among the hundreds of macabre listings on the squarefoot.com.hk Web site is the home of a local soccer player who, crushed by the weight of debt and relationship problems, jumped from his 36th floor flat.
Then there is the divorcee whose body was discovered a month after she poisoned herself with the fumes of burning charcoal or the woman hacked to death and mutilated by her domestic helper in an exclusive apartment block.
Such morbid tales are a boon to investors who would not live in a haunted house themselves, but will gladly put it up for rent.
“There’s a group of investors who bid for these places specifically and then rent it to people who don’t mind its bad history,” Wong added.
More often than not those are foreign expatriates — widely known in local slang as gweilo — who are not overly concerned about the history of their apartment.
“Gweilos don’t have the same beliefs as Hong Kong people and just want a cheaper price in a nice area,” said Winnie Ng of Rich Harvest property agency.
Haunted houses might be sold for 40 percent below market price depending on what has happened there and how recently it took place, Ng said, equaling the impact of the 2003 SARS outbreak that had investors fleeing the city.
Also, while the market is slowing, properties remain expensive, narrowing the pool available to prospective buyers.
A deposit on an entry-level unit is more than three times a typical first-time buyer’s gross household income, Barclays Capital Research said in a recent report.
Home prices have leaped more than 70 percent since 2009, while banks have increased mortgage rates five times since March last year, pricing all but the wealthiest out of the market.
With many young Hong Kongers forced to live at home deep into their 20s or 30s, haunted houses are providing an unlikely route onto the housing ladder.
Abby Lau, 26, who lives with her family and is saving to move, said many among her age group are looking at haunted houses as a realistic first-time purchase or cheap rent.
However, soon Lau and tens of thousands like her might find they have to live with the city’s ghosts whether they like it or not.
As Ng said, Hong Kong’s 7 million people cram into a small area where many buildings are old, raising the likelihood someone has died in “bad circumstances” in every block.
“Someone has to live in them ... really there is no choice,” she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in