China Tells

The property price in Hongkong went through a roller coaster (See Article from Chinatells) in the last two years and now is back to the highest since 1999. It reveals a lot of thoughts by having a glance at the history of property price in Hongkong in the last 10 years. Since the Asia financial crisis in 1998, HK property price continues to go down by more than 40% for almost 5 years (1999-2003). Then the market started to recover from bottom and continued to break new highs until 2008, when the American financial crisis took place. It is worth noting that it was not until 2008 that HK’s housing price reached the level of 1999. In other words, if someone bought a property for investment in 1999, it would have taken the investor about 10 years to breakeven without considering interest cost and opportunity cost – really a bad investment. What is more interesting, is that the property price corrected about 20% during second half of 2008, and then shortly rebounded to the level as high as prior to the financial crisis during 2009. Such a volatile movement pushes everyone to think: what next? Will the property price continue to go up? Remember, if you make a mistake in going into the property market at a wrong time, it could cost you as long as ten years to correct that mistake.

香港房地产市场在最近两年波动剧烈。08年香港房地产市场到达99年以来的新高，比99年高位还超出20%。但是08年的金融危机让房价立马缩水20%，可是到了09年年初，房价快速反弹，并且在09年年终的时候回到了08年高位。如此剧烈波幅和前10年的房价走势完全相反：在前十年中，香港房市在99年到03年经历了大熊市，然后04年到08年又一路高攀。目前的高位能否持续，接下来的5年是熊还是牛，真是很难让人捉摸。