Industrial and commercial property sales in Hong Kong are expected to fall in the second half of this year as banks tighten lending but prices will continue to rise, agents say.
'Negative factors are starting to surface and it will inevitably affect the market temporarily,' Roy Wong Ying-nin of Ricacorp Properties said.
'But the market adjustment will mainly be reflected in the number of transactions instead of prices, as there aren't many changes to fundamental factors ... such as low interest rates and strong economic growth.'
The commercial property market has been active this year after attracting some of the investors driven away from the residential market by the government's cooling measures.
In the first half of this year, a record high of 9,177 industrial and commercial properties were sold, totalling HK$91.21 billion, up 3 per cent and 26 per cent respectively compared with the second half of last year. Wong said the growth pace would slow in the next six months.
For industrial properties, Ricacorp's district director Raymond Chu Leung-hang said investors were affected by banks' tightening of mortgage loans and property valuations as they could borrow no more than 40 per cent of the value of the property.