[URBAN NOTE] "Singapore Is Crushing Hong Kong in the Race to Cut Home Prices"
Bloomberg's Pooja Thakur Mahrotri and Frederik Balfour report on how the two Chinese-majority city-states in East Asia are dealing, differently, with real estate prices.
On the surface, the property markets in Singapore and Hong Kong have much in common. The two Asian financial hubs have both moved to rein in runaway home prices in recent years as they sought to make housing more affordable.
Yet, consider how home values in the cities have diverged. Singapore has been successful in damping buyer demand with curbs (prices slumped by the most in seven years last month), while restrictions have had little impact on Hong Kong’s gravity-defying market, which is rebounding after a short-lived dip.
Hong Kong’s resurgent property market poses a headache for Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who’s been touting his success cooling property prices ahead of a March vote to determine the city’s leadership for the next five years. Leung has introduced a raft of measures to cool the housing market since 2012 and his record may weigh on China’s decision to keep backing him.
Leung, who hasn’t said whether he’ll seek a second term, has struggled with low popularity through his tenure, including mass democracy protests in 2014 fueled in part by the city’s yawning wealth gap. He received an approval rating of less than 39 percent last month, compared with a high of almost 57 percent before taking office, according to the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme.
On the surface, the property markets in Singapore and Hong Kong have much in common. The two Asian financial hubs have both moved to rein in runaway home prices in recent years as they sought to make housing more affordable.
Yet, consider how home values in the cities have diverged. Singapore has been successful in damping buyer demand with curbs (prices slumped by the most in seven years last month), while restrictions have had little impact on Hong Kong’s gravity-defying market, which is rebounding after a short-lived dip.
Hong Kong’s resurgent property market poses a headache for Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who’s been touting his success cooling property prices ahead of a March vote to determine the city’s leadership for the next five years. Leung has introduced a raft of measures to cool the housing market since 2012 and his record may weigh on China’s decision to keep backing him.
Leung, who hasn’t said whether he’ll seek a second term, has struggled with low popularity through his tenure, including mass democracy protests in 2014 fueled in part by the city’s yawning wealth gap. He received an approval rating of less than 39 percent last month, compared with a high of almost 57 percent before taking office, according to the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme.