Hong Kong’s lived-in home prices rose for a fourth consecutive month to a seven-month high in July, indicating the city’s residential property market may have turned a corner. A widely watched official index of secondary home prices gained 0.42 per cent month on month to 387.9 in July, according to data from the Rating and…
Hong Kong’s largest bank has rolled out a fixed-rate mortgage plan, charging lower interest for home loan borrowers ahead of the first relaxation in monetary policy this year, expected in mid-September. HSBC launched a mortgage plan fixed at 2.73 per cent per annum on Monday for either the first three or five years, according to…
A “low-rate honeymoon” for Hong Kong borrowers has come to an end with an increase in the interest rate banks use to set loan prices, a mixed blessing that drives away carry traders but threatens a property market recovery and discourages corporate borrowing, according to analysts. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority intervened 12 times in…
A “low-rate honeymoon” for Hong Kong borrowers has come to an end with an increase in the interest rate banks use to set loan prices, a mixed blessing that drives away carry traders but threatens a property market recovery and discourages corporate borrowing, according to analysts. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority intervened 12 times in…
Hong Kong’s home sales are likely to hit a four-year high this year as buyers show an increasing willingness to commit to both new and existing residential units, according to agents. Residential transactions in the city are expected to rise 13 per cent to 64,000 this year, helped by lower prices as well as policy…
Mainland Chinese buyers and “smart money” from Southeast Asia will continue “bottom-fishing for trophy assets” in Hong Kong’s luxury property market as prices remain depressed through 2025, according to the director and head of residential sales at Savills. Capital from Singapore had been flowing to Hong Kong because the Singaporean market had not declined, Thomas…
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) kept its base rate unchanged in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve, after the American central bank said it needed more time and data to monitor the potential inflationary impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. On Thursday, the HKMA maintained its rate at 4.75 per cent, hours after the…
Is the tide turning for Hong Kong’s ailing property market? When second-hand home prices are down almost 30 per cent from their peak in August 2021 and rents for grade A offices are more than 40 per cent lower than in the second quarter of 2019, talk of a recovery seems wildly premature. But expectations,…
In financial markets, the Hong Kong dollar is known as a “widow-maker”, a ruinous trade that inflicts painful losses on successive generations of investors. While betting against Japanese government bonds has been the most notorious widow-maker trade, challenges to Hong Kong’s currency peg to the US dollar date back to the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis…
Wang Ruoshuo, a 21-year-old student from Hefei, the capital of central Anhui province, is searching for a flat in Hung Hom in southern Kowloon, which is close to her university and the company where she interns. As a first-time renter, however, she has been taken aback by the high prices. Wang and her friends are…