House prices to fall by up to 8pc, says analyst
A property analyst says she expects housing prices to fall by up to 8 percent, before rebounding early next year.  Hannah Jeong, head of valuation and advisory services at real estate services company, Colliers Hong Kong, was speaking on RTHK's Hong Kong Today programme after home prices here dropped to their lowest levels in 18 months. "So far, we are looking at the first half of 2022 we have seen about a 3 percent drop, which is not very significant," she said. "But I think we will see another 5 to 8 percent decrease in the second half of 2022." But Jeong said prices should then recover if the Covid situation is under control "In the first half of next year, we will be able to recover back to the early 2021 situation - before the peak wave - so we are expecting about a 5 percent increment for the first half of next year." Compared with June last year, home prices were down 3.4 percent. The figure was released on Wednesday just before the Federal Reserve again raised the benchmark US interest rate, this time by 75 basis points, as it battles to tamp down raging price pressures that are squeezing American families. That has put more pressure on Hong Kong banks to raise borrowing costs. Jeong said mortgages had already been going up with the one-month Hibor rate rising to 1.29 percent on Wednesday. That compares to 0.85 percent a month ago and about 0.18 percent at the end of May. "So according to the Monetary Authority more than 90 percent of the mortgage holders are using Hibor rate at this moment," she said. "And their payment rate - let's say every one million , they need to pay about HK$600 per month more."