For Some Reason, I Thought That The HK Property Market Was Actually Holding Up....

But I read this piece today in the Standard with this little gem of information...

Nearly 90 percent of the 1,182 apartments at The Merton were pre-sold early last year at prices ranging between HK$6,000 and HK$7,000 per square foot ahead of project completion by the end of last year.....

Prevailing price levels for The Merton flats in the secondary market range from HK$4,000 to HK$5,000 psf, prompting some buyers, including those speculators who purchased the uncompleted flats last year, to give up the deals to minimize their losses, real estate agents said.

Ok, so lets see, according to the above, the average presold apartment is down about HK$2,000 a foot from HK$6,500 to HK$4,500 for a percentage decline of about 30%. Wow, that is a huge drop but I looked in the SCMP the other day and in all their fact and figures I did not notice much of a drop but more of a leveling off in prices as of late.

So what is this monster loss then? Is it just idiots being taken for a ride or has the market really been taking a huge hit that we are not really aware of since the newspapers here are reluctant to tell the truth and declare a disaster? I just don't know!

However, I did read this little gem...

Cheung Kong (Holdings) said earlier that no forfeited flat deals were recorded in its Caribbean Coast development in Tung Chung.

Well, I also know that the uber-tycoon, Li Ka-shing that poisons Hong Kong residents by selling them chemical tainted vegetables in Park-N-Shop, threatened to sue anyone that defaulted on a purchase and probably held some of these people's feet to the fire to ensure that he got paid. So, I am not particularly impressed with this statistic. And how many people made money with that piece of garbage REIT, Prosperity REIT, down 16% on its first day of trading that he bagged the public with a little while ago. Why anyone would do business with this crook is beyond my simple mind.