Hong Kong | Property may have bottomed as builder lifts prices

Hong Kong property prices are bouncing back.

Henderson Land Development Co. raised the average price for a new batch of apartments at The Vantage in Kowloon by about 10 percent, a price list shows. The move is well-founded – demand is rising with developers selling more units in the first 11 days of this month than all of February, according to Midland Holdings Ltd.

Used homes are also fetching higher prices. Values for secondary homes have risen for the past four weeks, after sliding 10 percent in the seven months through January, figures from Centaline Property Agency Ltd. show.

The Federal Reserve’s signal it will pause interest-rate hikes has cleared away concerns of higher mortgage rates in the city, while China and the U.S. moving closer to a trade deal has boosted confidence in the economic outlook.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has already predicted the property market correction would be short-lived, and prices would bottom out by the end of the first quarter.

Still, not everyone is convinced.

DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd. expects home prices to fall 10 percent in 2019, according to analyst Jeff Yau. The reasons include downward pressure on the global economy and a large supply of new residential units in areas like Tuen Mun and Tai Po. Bloomberg