Home prices in the world’s most expensive market are tumbling

Prices in Hong Kong are down 7% from an August high

A view of the Hong Kong skyline (Credit: iStock)
A view of the Hong Kong skyline (Credit: iStock)

Hong Kong’s property market reached unfathomable heights in 2017, but prices started falling back to earth in 2018.

Goldman Sachs projects a 15 to 20 percent decline in property prices over two years as interest rates, Bloomberg reported. Home prices have dropped 7 percent from a high in August.

One site in Kai Tak, for example, had a winning bid from China Overseas Land & Investment of HK$13,523, or $1,726, per square foot of floor area. That price is 13 percent less than what Goldin Group paid last month for a nearby property. The Kai Tak deal is the second-biggest residential land sale by area this year.

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“The number of bids drawn this time was small, and that has to do with the current market situation,” James Cheung, a senior associate director at Centaline Surveyors Ltd., told Bloomberg.

This year, the value of land parcels sold by the government plunged by 37 percent from last year.

That doesn’t mean some properties aren’t still hitting the market at sky-high prices. A home in the exclusive Peak neighborhood was listed for $446 million in October. If it sells anywhere near that price, it be one of the most expensive sales in the world, according to a previous report. [Bloomberg] — Meenal Vamburkar