Property market confidence rebounds

Jacky Shek

With the gaming revenue drop easing, local developers are regaining confidence in promoting the real estate market. Nevertheless, Jacky Shek, senior director of the Centaline Macau Property Agency Limited, noted yesterday during a press conference that the forecasts for transaction volume in the third quarter of the year remain low.
Against the background of current stabilized housing prices, Shek told the media that properties were recently being sold for prices slightly higher than those in the first quarter, using this to predict that the stability would stay towards the last quarter.
Although the overall transaction volume continued to stand low, no more downward adjustment in prices would be observed in the current quarter or near future, stressed Shek.
The director added that the company saw no “worse circumstances” which could lead to markdown decisions amongst local sellers. “In July, if the offers given didn’t match the already down-adjusted price, the sellers would basically wait rather than sell right away,” he said.
Quiet trading in July, in which volume was half that of preceding months, was partly due to the month within the outbound traveling season, a period in which buyers and sellers were believed to be abroad. The situation is similar to that which took place in the beginning of the year.
Besides, Shek noted that the current rut in Hong Kong’s stock market did not benefit trading. “We didn’t see any collective down-adjustment or those cases where the proprietors hastened to sell their flats after losing money in the stock market,” he said.
According to the Financial Services Bureau, a total of 602 transactions were recorded last month. The director also believed that the gaming revenue would incrementally return to a “healthy number” of between 18 billion to 20 billion, which he said was “encouraging to everyone.”
“If the gaming earning returns to a steady level and the property prices remain stable, the developers would be more likely confident and proactive with pushing their properties for sale,” said Shek.
Although domestic demand was comparatively more crucial than gaming revenue when it came to the property market, according to him, the latter was more or less still influential. Staff reporter

Alert over soaring phone fraud

Centaline has urged local citizens to stay vigilant against suspicious telephone calls as the region experiences involving property brokerage scams from time to time.
The agency representatives also praised the two-year-old real estate agency law for effectively safeguarding the interests of realtors, proprietors and buyers through legal agreements.
Jacky Shek said that many people have already become accustomed to the regulations, which were implemented in July 2013, after learning more about their content and objectives.
“We think to support the legislation is to protect everyone’s rights and interests,” he said, adding that the scams were of a far more serious nature on the mainland. He stressed that such regulation did not simply target the agencies, dismissing the shutdown of small-scale firms owing to the law’s enforcement.
Despite no previous hoaxes being identified, Shek noted that similar crimes have happened occasionally in Macau. The number of phone scams especially soared these past few months.
Advanced technology nowadays also serves to constrain illegal activities, as any individual case would immediately be posted online, alerting society.