Jake's View | Hong Kong’s billionaire tycoons don’t really know where the property market is headed, they just act like they do
Forecasts on the property market outlook by Lee Shau-kee of Henderson Land Development should be taken with a grain of salt
Home prices in Hong Kong will fall another 5 per cent in the next couple of months as local developers are in a rush to sell homes, says the chairman of Henderson Land Development, Lee Shau-kee.
Lee said the city’s housing prices will fall about 30 per cent from their peak in the wake of high development costs. The market is about halfway through a price correction cycle..., he added.
Business, March 22
I have had experience of the exactitude of the property market forecasts of Say Sook (Uncle Four) as Mr Lee is popularly known.
This was back in 1981 when he took Henderson Land public. The honour of introducing it to the stock market was given to Sun Hung Kai Securities, where I was research manager at the time, and we adopted a novel method of listing the stock.
The price was to be HK$4 a share but you only had to put down HK$1 immediately to subscribe to the offer. Six months later you would be dunned for another HK$1 and at the end of the year you would make the final HK$2 payment.
You have someone who has picked a few numbers out of the air because they have a nice ring