Hong Kong Property Market Cooling Off Substantially....

I am always amazed at Hong Kong people's faith in the property market where no price is too high. People just can't get enough of it! But as I wrote about before, I am not a believer in the property market here. It appears as if finally, the housing market is taking a breather from its fantastic rise in price from the lows during SARS a couple of years ago.

The secondary market was also affected, Chow said, pointing to a speculator who bought a flat on North Point for HK$1.93 million last March and only sold it in June for HK$1.85 million, an on-paper loss of HK$83,000. But with stamp duty, legal fees and commissions, the loss would be more like HK$140,000, he said.

Speculators are the first to start taking losses and it looks as this trend will be continuing as more sensible pricing should enter the housing market in the near-term. People spend just too much money for housing here and it makes Hong Kong less competitive as a result.