Rising interest rates will continue to make Hong Kong homes less attractive to buyers, the bank says
In today’s roundup of regional news headlines, high-profile bank Goldman Sachs issues a bleak outlook for Hong Kong’s housing market, China’s E-House brokerage files for bankruptcy protection in the US, and HKEX-listed SF REIT scales back its growth ambitions.
HK Home Prices Could Nosedive 30% Through 2023: Goldman Sachs
Hong Kong home prices are set to plummet by as much as 30 percent by the end of 2023, as sharply increasing interest rates continue to make homes less affordable and repel investors from the market, according to Goldman Sachs.
The American investment bank, after revising its forecast downwards on Tuesday, now expects prices to fall by 15 percent in both 2022 and 2023, compared with year-end 2021 levels, followed by no change in 2024. It had earlier predicted that prices would fall by a total of 20 percent through 2024. Read more>>
Chinese Property Agent E-House Files for US Bankruptcy Protection
E-House China Enterprise Holdings, a property brokerage and consultancy, has filed for protection in a US bankruptcy court to implement its offshore debt restructuring, after defaulting on two dollar-denominated bonds amid a slump in mainland China’s real estate market.
The Shanghai-based firm, through its foreign representative Alexander Lawson, filed for protection under Chapter 15 of the US bankruptcy code in the Southern District of New York Court on Monday, according to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing. Read more>>
SF REIT to Miss Goal of Doubling Assets to $1.5B
SF REIT, the first real estate investment trust in Hong Kong to focus on logistics properties, said it will not be able to achieve the target of doubling its portfolio within two years of listing because interest rates have increased sharply.
The goal had been to expand the value of total assets from HK$6 billion ($764 million) to HK$12 billion. Read more>>
Legoland Korea Developer’s Default Flags Risks for Nation’s Builders
A missed debt payment by the developer of the Legoland Korea theme park adds to difficulties faced by the nation’s real estate market, which is already weakened by surging interest rates.
The amusement park opened in May just as turmoil in global debt markets made it much pricier for South Korean borrowers including developers to refinance debt. Commercial paper repackaging KRW 205 billion ($150 million) in loans for the Legoland Korea project wasn’t paid on the maturity date of 29 September, according to backers of the project. Read more>>
CBRE IM Joins Other UK Property Funds in Deferring Payments
CBRE Investment Management has deferred redemption payments on its UK property fund due to market conditions, it said Wednesday, joining several other funds taking similar steps to avert a cash crunch after recent turmoil in UK money markets.
Sharp rises in interest rates this year have encouraged pension funds and other institutional investors to switch out of property funds, industry consultants say, as they no longer need to hunt out yield through investment in riskier assets. Read more>>
Record Number of Singapore Million-Dollar HDB Flats Sold in September
The number of Housing and Development Board flats sold for S$1 million ($700,000) or more hit a record high in September, following the news of Singapore’s latest property cooling measures.
According to flash data from real estate portal SRX and 99.co released on Thursday, a total of 45 flats worth a million dollars each were sold last month. The sales surpassed the previous high in December 2021, which saw 36 of such flats sold, and made up about 1.7 percent of total resale volumes last month. Read more>>
Big Data Exchange Launches BDx Indonesia With 4 Existing Data Centres
Following the completion of a $300 million joint venture agreement with PT Indosat Tbk and PT Aplikanusa Lintasarta, Big Data Exchange, a data centre provider in Asia Pacific, announced the launch of BDx Indonesia.
With the announcement, BDx Indonesia assumes the operations of four existing data centres in the highly sought-after locations in and around the capital city of Jakarta. Read more>>
CDL to Start Previews for Copen Grand Executive Condominium in Tengah
City Developments Ltd and MCL Land will open applications for their Copen Grand executive condominium project in Singapore’s Tengah area on Friday, with prices starting from S$1.08 million ($760,000) for a two-bedroom unit.
The Copen Grand EC will be the first residential project to be launched in the wake of fresh market cooling measures just announced by the government last week, when tighter limits on housing loans came into effect. Read more>>
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