HONG KONG -- After nearly a year of calls with real estate agents, Ms. Chan was relieved to finally sell her 400-square-foot, top-floor apartment in Hong Kong's northern residential district of Yuen Long for 5.8 million Hong Kong dollars ($741,000) last month.
But the markdown of 32% from when it was valued at its peak two years ago was a disappointment.
Investors, real estate agencies and government authorities were confident that as the city emerged from its long COVID seclusion, property prices would soar thanks to the resumption of travel between mainland China, which was supposed to stimulate demand.
Those hopes, however, failed to materialize. Analysts point to myriad factors for the delayed bounceback but emphasized the influence of China's economic slowdown.
"Deepening property woes in mainland China may have also appeared to hurt sentiment in the local housing market," said Lloyd Chan, senior economist at Oxford Economics.
Another factor is Hong Kong's interest rates, which move in lockstep with the U.S. Federal Reserve. The city has raised rates 11 times in the past 17 months, pushing borrowing costs to levels not seen since December 2007.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Market-Spotlight/Hong-Kong-property-market-woes-pile-pressure-on-government