YellowTip

Dr.B. Thanks for the advice. I might just head over there during the weekend to have a look. Just to share some quick feedback I received from my HK colleagues about this place: They don't like it that much since it still has the old HOS image/stigma attached to it. Also, they indicated that together with Whampoa, these are housing enclaves of companies like TATA (TCS) and Infosys who place their Indian staff there. (nothing wrong with that, but my HK colleagues market that as a negative) Bus connections from that area to HK island and other parts of HK are actually very good. First of all, I'm not sure about the accuracy of this information, but it could explain the lower than average price. I was also considering to buy a small unit at Harbour Green. Prices there are around 10K/ft so, still within a reasonable price range. The nice thing about this place is that it has quick (and covered) access to the Olympic MTR station. That gets me to work in Central in about 20 minutes... without getting wet during the raining season. If I remember correctly, you live next to the Imperial Cullinan development. How is that turning out to be? Our discussions a year ago concluded that it was a terrible location, tightly squeezed between OSS and TLB. Now that development is almost complete, do you still feel the same, or does it actually not look too bad? Secondary asking prices are between 13K and 15K/ft. You feel it's over priced?

DrBubb, I've been considering your idea of downsizing for some time. Not just as a strategic move, but also because the bigger properties are out of my range. I did it already for my rental this past year (living in a tiny 675ft apartment) and will consider to buy something similar in size. Still...with things going south in China... I'm very hesitant to buy anything. For the past year I kept most of my money in cash on the bank. While everybody around me is telling me that I'm crazy to do that ( --> inflation ), those very same people have lost upwards of 10% this past year on the stock market. I very much look forward to your extended post.

Hi everybody, As some of you might remember, I sold my property a little over a year ago, made a big chunk of cash, and then started renting. As so many at the time, I was expecting the market to correct so decided to play the waiting game... So far the waiting game hasn't paid off and after a small dip in prices, they have started rising again. In short: I'm back to where I was a year ago.... and a little over year worth of rent lighter. Honestly, I have no regrets, as I rented cheap and consider it an insurance expense for averting risk. Having said that, I don't want to be renting forever, so time to reevaluate the situation. I've listed some of my observations below. Please feel free to comment. The good: The HK property market seems pretty strong at the moment. Resilient against the troubles in the US and Europe and with a very healthy mortgage market (40%-50% mortgages seem to be the norm). Definitely no sign of a credit bubble here. More and more people seem convinced that all the money printing going on in US and Euro is actually helping to inflate property prices in HK (safe haven for wealth?), so with a very high likelihood of more money printing in US and Euro in the coming few years, and low interest environment, things seem to look very good for HK property (?). CY Leung seems to be doing everything he can to avoid any kind of correction in the property market. He'll likely keep the current mortgae requirements in place, add a bit of HOS to the mix, but I suspect he'll leave it at that. The supply of new housing seems to be very tight, so demand is likely to continue to outpace supply. The Bad: I do quite a bit of business with mainland companies, and please believe me when I say that they are hurting. Their share prices have been eroded in the past year and their sales pipeline is looking meager. The kind of deals and discounts we're able to get from them is AMAZING... all pointing to the fact that these Chinese companies are pretty desperate for business at the moment. Of course, these very same companies and their government maintain their almost psychotic story of strong growth and crazy profit forecasts, but reality is that many of them are losing money. Before,during and even after CNY this year, I could barely walk through Canton rd. in TST. It was so over crowded with mainland shoppers that I avoided going there like the plague. I've been there several times in the past few months, and things almost seem quiet. Sure, there's still shoppers, but I can now comfortably walk, sales people are willing to help non-mainland shoppers again and I can easily get a taxi. All eyes are focused on the Euro crisis now, but things in the US are far from solved. The Euro governments are printing, lying and deceiving like crazy to try and prevent a breakup. In the US the same is going on to boost voter confidence for the presidential elections. I still believe that China *heavily* depends in exports to these economies for its own survival. I for one don't subscribe to the idea that China's internal demand is in a position to counter a severe drop in exports. The Ugly: While many believe that HK people have confidence in the property market and are starting to buy again, I have come to know them in a slightly different way. HK people are not as stone cold as their counter parts on the mainland think they are. HK people in the property market like to play the game of chicken. When the first person blinks (buyer/seller), the rest quickly follows. The problem is that there haven't been any major blinking events to drive the market sharply either way. This explains the still historically low transaction volumes (they have gone up recently, but are historically still very low) and relatively stable prices (between 12 months ago and today, prices I have been tracking have remaining more or less the same, but currently in a continuing upward trend). So to me, the big question is, what could potentially be a major blinking event? I see two: Upward: The US and Euro continue their path into a depression, but China's internal demand (by some miracle) is able to support the economy and related GDP growth. Honestly, I see this as unlikely. Downward: As the US and Euro continue their path into a depression, China experiences a shock as internal demand is not strong enough to support the economy. When this happens (if it hasn't started already), at some point, mainland Chinese people need to repatriate their money in order to keep their business going / pay off their dept. I read somewhere that there are approximately 245K empty apartments in HK (mostly owned by Mainland people). If these were to suddenly come onto the market, you have the perfect blinking event: massive supply of apartments suddenly comes onto the market. Very likely at or below market prices. I fear that this could trigger a massive sell-off, taking the market down a good 30+ %. So gentlemen, please load your guns and start shooting. Am I missing some critical angles or facts? Is my downward blinking event very unlikely to happen, or am I stating the obvious? Just to make the story complete, I have enough cash to make a 40-50% down payment (depending on the price of course) and a stable job. Will buy if it makes sense, but don't want to buy at the top of the market.

Article in today's Standard: Homeowners feel pinch as curbs bite Are we starting to see the first signs of a sell-off?

Funny enough, I was chatting with this mainland Chinese guy last night. Very sharp guy with an MBA from USA and a very wealthy family with strong ties to the Communist party (or so he said). Lives in GZ. Anyway, he was in town for 2 weeks, looking to buy properties for his family here. Obviously I asked him if he didn't think prices had already peaked. The confidence in his answer really took me by surprise. He said it was very simple: The Chinese government would not allow the market to crash here (I've heard that one before), since so many politicians and influential people bought property in HK. Also, he said, there's so many people in China who dream of buying property in HK. That demand would continue to fuel HK property market for years to come. He had absolutely no fear of a correction any time soon. While my first reaction was that he was yet another brainwashed China guy with a very single sided view on reality. I can't help myself from thinking that perhaps we're all being too paranoid and pessimistic ... ??? I guess only time will tell...

Yes, T8 will indeed offer a somewhat better view when looking in between OSS and IHV, but just look at the numbers: The smallest 850sqf unit is estimated to sell between 20 and 25M. Probably slightly higher than those units at the Cullinan. 1. At those prices (more than twice the prices at OSS), do you really think there's much room for those prices to increase over the next few years? 2. The people that can afford to pay these kind of prices, do you really think they would accept living in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment at a sub-par location? At some point, one would think we would reach a psychological breaking point where people just don't see the value anymore. Honestly, I think we already reached that point 8 months ago, but current levels are insane. At one point I found myself seriously considering buying a 850sqf unit at IC. But then when I realized I'd be paying 2M Euro's for a super tiny apartment in a not very interesting location.... I quickly woke up. Ps. Judging from your post, it seems you're interested in buying? If so, please enlighten me. Perhaps I'm just being too pessimistic.

Ahhh... Imperial Cullinan. The latest over hyped new property in Hong Kong. The developer squeezed it on a small plot between The Long Beach and One Silversea. For most of the day, the building is entirely overshadowed by One Silversea. All apartments have their neighbors in very close proximity at One Silversea staring into their living rooms. Still, SHK is going to charge such ridiculous prices. They actually are asking a substantially higher price than current market prices for apartments at the Cullinan above Kowloon station. It just makes absolutely no sense for such a development at this location.

Where do these predictions come from? HK Property stocks have performed terrible this year. There's hardly any movement in the secondary market due to unrealistic prices. The HSI has been performing poorly lately. Yet property prices will steam upwards another 14% by the end of this year??? What am I missing here?

Interesting article in today's Standard: "Developers are introducing a deferred payment scheme and offering price discounts to lure potential homebuyers - as academics believe this is an indication the property market has peaked and is in danger of falling soon." "All these new payment methods are indicating the property market is going to fall soon," said Chong Tai-leung, executive director of the Institute of Global Economics and Finance, at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Full article: http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=111766&sid=32597249&con_type=1

Fully agree, patience is golden. Still patience is a difficult thing to have in a place like HK. One thing I have observed many times in HK is that the market is extremely quick to react (both to the up and down side). Things can all be chugging along fine, and just a slight trigger can send markets down in a matter of weeks.

Just to play devil's advocate on this point: Many of those people buying now are arguing that we just had a correction in the property market (2008) and that we still have at least 4-5 years of growth ahead of us before things stabilize or correct. According to them, we're only in the take-off phase now. What be the counter argument for that?

Interesting article indeed. Yet in the same newspaper, you can read how SHK sold out their i.UniQ appartments in record time. Are all these buyers ignorant, or are we the ignorant ones? Yeah, I got burned on that Hui Xian IPO. I just subscribed to the MGM IPO with the hope of making up for my Hui Xian losses. I also remember an extremely high rate of IPOs in the US and Europe just before the IT crash in 2001. From what I understand, China increasing their interest rates will only further fuel the bubble here in HK. One of the attractive points for mainlanders right now is that they can borrow money in HK at far lower rates and with much greater ease than in China. The HK banks are facilitating this by offering them all sorts of cheats to let them use their China assets as security for a mortgage in HK (a banking crisis in the making). Of course, China increasing their interest rates will/should cool down the Chinese economy, which in turn should impact HK. I too am loving the discussion here. Would be interested in Dr.Bubbs take on the whole situation.

An interesting article that discusses the bubble in China: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-24/chanos-says-hedge-fund-may-not-be-bearish-enough-on-chinese-real-estate.html

Thelliand, That's scary. That 1997 article is eerily similar to the current reality. I definitely recognize what you're saying about these ghost estates. I noticed the same at The Harbourside (Kowloon Station). The number of empty flats there is amazing. And yes, since the mainlanders see these flats as assets, they'll sell them in a heartbeat, at a lower price, if they get spooked somehow. Surfdude, thanks for the input on TC and LB2. I was having lunch with a friend today. She is an investment manager for UHNW (ultra high net worth) people, mainly from mainland China. While I don't know much about the investment business, I consider her to be pretty knowledgeable and well informed. She too believes that a serious correction is on the horizon. She's even going as far as predicting that the correction will be triggered from events in China. According to her, the bubble we're seeing in HK is very small compared to the one in China. Especially cities like Beijing and Shanghai are true danger zones with hyper inflated land/property prices from government stimulus money. Even her mainland clients are cashing out their investments in fear of a correction. Anyway, please consider her opinions as pure 'lunch talk' without any facts to back up her opinions, but interesting nevertheless. An interesting indicator she mentioned was that of IPO's. When the number of IPO's starts to increase rapidly, a correction in the market is likely to occur. She claims the same happened in 1997. What I find strange though is that while many of the signals seem to be pointing to a correction, why are the property developers paying record prices at the land auctions? According to the newspaper articles, they claim that for those sites developers need to sell the units at higher than current market prices in order not to lose money. Surely these powerful and influentlial developers know more than we do about the current state of the market.... ????

Thanks surfdude. You might be right about the Greed phase. I sure was greedy when I put my property on the market I set a price that was substantially above market price, expecting the property to just sit there for a while. Even the HKProperty agent was telling me that the price was too high and that at this level he would likely not be able to find any buyers. Make a short story even shorter, I sold the property 2 days later at slightly below my asking price. It sold so fast that I was actually asking myself if I should have priced it even higher... ....greed? What would be typical signs of the Delusion stage?