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Opinion | Why the extradition bill protests won’t burst Hong Kong’s property bubble
- Observers argue that a dip in sentiment due to the protests, higher mortgage rates and declining affordability should surely trigger a downturn
- But as the data shows, the property market is still red hot, and housing affordability is not significantly worse than at any time over the last decade
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As protests against Hong Kong’s government and its masters in Beijing rumble on, an increasing number of financial investors are wondering whether the city’s summer of discontent will be the prick that finally bursts the local property market bubble.
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Amid such a climate of uncertainty and fear, they reason, surely the world’s most expensive residential property market is on the verge of a painful slump? Even a 1997-style crash?
It is hardly a new thing for observers to call a top to Hong Kong’s gravity-defying property market. The International Monetary Fund, for example, has been warning about the dangers of an unsustainable bubble since 2010.
Now suspicions are strengthening that the stopped clocks are at last telling the right time.
In recent weeks, the bears have highlighted a whole range of factors they say point to a steep and protracted sell-off in the local housing market.
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