The 2019 Year of the Pig has entered the countdown
Looking back over the past year, the overall performance of the property market first rose and then softened, similar to the trend in the Year of the Dog. At the beginning of the Year of the Pig, the Sino-U.S. Trade war, which had lasted nearly half a year at that time, once turned for the better. The property market received positive news and released a large backlog of purchasing power before the Spring Festival. However, in the second half of the year, the outbreak of revision storms and the continuous changes in the trade war have reversed the market conditions. Only when the Hong Kong government announced the lenient measures and the United States cut interest rates three times did it have a supportive effect on the property market, which eventually made the year of the pig still beat the year of the dog in 2018.
According to data from the Comprehensive Land Registry of the Midland Real Estate Data and Research Center, in the lunar calendar year, the number of first-hand private buildings registered in the year of the pig (as of year 28) was close to 18,689, compared with 16,688 in the year of the dog. The number of first-hand private buildings registered in the Year of the Pig increased by about 12% year-on-year. As for second-hand housing, 40,290 cases were recorded in the Year of the Pig, a slight increase of about 3.5% year-on-year.
Top ten housing deals
Although the number of second-hand residential registrations in Hong Kong in 2019 is only slightly younger than 2018, if you compare the top ten housing estates in the 2019 year of the pig (as of year 28) and the year of the dog in 2018, it is not difficult to find that 7 of them have increased by more than 10% . According to data, the number of cases in Laguna City in 2019 rose by approximately 30.8% year-on-year to 204 cases, the highest increase among the top ten housing estates; the Haiyi Peninsula also rose by 29.6%, ranking second; Kornhill Gardens year-on-year It increased by about 24.8%. As for the first city of Shatin, Tsuen Wan Centre, Mei Foo Sun Chuen and Taikoo Shing, year-on-year increases of about 10.5% to about 19.3% were also recorded. In addition, the number of cases recorded in the Year of the Pig in Huangpu Garden and Metropolis also exceeded that of the Year of the Dog, which was about 9% and 3.1% higher, respectively. Among the top ten housing estates, only the number of Kingswood Villas decreased year-on-year. The housing estate recorded 518 second-hand registrations throughout the year, a slight decrease of about 1% year-on-year.
Pneumonia outbreak or hit the property market
Since the Year of the Pig, the United States has cut interest rates three times for a total of 3/4%, and Hong Kong has followed the interest rate cut by 1/8%, which will enable Hong Kong to sustain an ultra-low interest rate environment for a period of time in the future. Coupled with the government ’s announcement in the Policy Address on October 16 that the first homeowner’s mortgage restriction was relaxed, more first home buyers and property exchangers used the above policy to enter the market, and the secondary market circulation once accelerated the response.
At the end of the year, China and the United States reached a first-stage negotiation agreement, which eased the relationship between the two countries. The HSI regained 28,000 points, which further stimulated buyers’ desire to enter the market. In addition, the turmoil in Hong Kong, which has been revised for more than half a year, showed signs of abating before the Lunar New Year.
However, since the first case of a new type of coronavirus pneumonia was discovered in Wuhan on December 8, the epidemic situation has now plummeted and a large-scale outbreak began in January 2020. The upsurge in the property market in Hong Kong has also been affected. There has been a reversal. Recently, there have been more cases of buyers abandoning or canceling dwellings. Preliminary estimates are that the property market may enter into a frozen market.