Seoul’s apartment prices stabilised in the final week of 2024 (Getty Images)
Seoul apartment prices were flat in the waning days of 2024 to snap a 40-week growth streak, with that story leading today’s headline roundup. Also in the news, Hong Kong home sales are poised to gather pace after hitting a three-year high and a housing shortage looms in South Korea.
Seoul Apartment Prices End 40-Week Upward Run
The price of apartments in Seoul, which had maintained an upward trend for 40 consecutive weeks, has stabilised. Nationwide, South Korean apartment prices continued to decline for a seventh consecutive week.
According to the Korea Real Estate Board, the national apartment price in the last week of December fell 0.03 percent compared with the previous week. Read more>>
Hong Kong Home Sales Expected to Continue Recovering in 2025
Hong Kong’s property transactions are expected to gather pace after hitting a three-year high in 2024 on the back of improving sentiment because of factors like higher loan values, interest rate cuts and demand from the investment migration scheme.
A total of 67,662 deals for new and lived-in homes, offices, shops, industrial units and car parking spaces were completed as of 30 December, up 16 percent from 58,035 transactions in 2023 and the highest since 96,133 in 2021, according to data compiled by Midland Realty. Read more>>
Experts Warn of South Korea Housing Shortage
Real estate experts predict that this year’s shortage of new apartment supply in South Korea will negatively impact market prices. They note that it is urgent to prepare measures such as continuous supply policies and the relaxation of reconstruction and redevelopment regulations.
In a survey of 20 real estate experts, 14 forecast that the shortage of new apartment supply this year would lead to an increase in real estate market prices. Furthermore, five out of the six others also projected that while the supply would be insufficient, it would not significantly affect market prices, resulting in 19 out of 20 anticipating a supply shortage. Read more>>
Naughty Korean Landlords Withhold $1.3B in Renter Deposits
Over 1,000 landlords across the country have repeatedly failed to return the deposits on their homes to tenants, with the arrears accumulated to KRW 1.9 trillion ($1.3 billion) across the country, government data showed Thursday.
A total of 1,128 individuals and 49 firms have failed to return the deposits to their tenants on at least two occasions in the past three years, according to state-run Korea Housing and Urban Guarantee Corp. Read more>>
India Developers Hope for Policy Support After 2024 Housing Market Decline
New home sales in India declined for the first time since the pandemic, as a sharp rise in housing prices and elevated borrowing costs ruined buyers’ appetite in 2024, and the real estate industry is now eyeing the upcoming budget for favourable economic conditions — a key to reviving demand conditions.
The decline in the Indian housing market came after three straight years of stellar growth, following the COVID-era downturn, and was attributed in part to a high base in the previous year, a fall in supply of new homes and price appreciation. Read more>>
Knight Frank Singapore Agents Jump to Rival SRI
On Wednesday, real estate agency SRI announced that 111 agents from Knight Frank Singapore’s agency business, KF Property Network, including its head, Evan Chung, had joined the firm.
The 111 agents accounted for 40.5 percent of the 274-strong salesforce at KFPN as of 1 January 2024, when it was ranked the sixth-largest property agency by the Council for Estate Agencies. Read more>>
Li Ka-shing Selling Stakes in Health Businesses for $608M
Hong Kong-listed Hutchmed China, controlled by tycoon Li Ka-shing, is selling stakes in its health subsidiary for around $608 million as the billionaire and his flagship conglomerate look to ramp up capital and pivot towards core operations at the drugmaker.
Hutchmed will sell a total 45 percent stake in Shanghai Hutchison Pharmaceuticals to Chinese firms GP Health Service Capital and Shanghai Pharmaceuticals, a stock exchange filing showed Wednesday. Read more>>
China Faces Overhang From Years of Excess
China’s go-go days are behind it as the world’s second-largest economy struggles with the bursting of the biggest real estate bubble ever. Now, China’s goal of overtaking the US as the world’s largest economy might take decades longer than Beijing expected — if it happens at all.
China’s economy today is burdened with excess: millions of empty or unfinished apartment blocks, trillions of dollars in debt straining local governments and ballooning industrial production driving an export surge that is igniting trade tensions worldwide. Read more>>
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