bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Ng Kang-chung

Signs of an exodus of property agents have emerged amid rising industry pessimism as the property market cooled in recent months.
A total of 259 property agents quit the trade within the first 15 days of February, or about 17 a day, according to figures released yesterday by industry watchdog Estate Agents Authority.
In January, 99 agents left the trade. It was also the first time in 14 months that the number of agents had dropped.
At the end of last year, the number of agents reached an all-time high of 37,568, up from 35,502 in 2014. As of February 15 this year, however, the number fell to 37,210.
READ MORE: Ad spending on Hong Kong residential properties fell 22 per cent in 2015 as buying sentiment soured
The number of property agencies also shrank, to 3,232 as of Monday, compared to 3,256 at the end of last year.
Authority chairman William Leung Wing-cheung said it would be premature to forecast “doom and gloom for the trade”.
“The figures seem to suggest many practitioners in the trade do not have high short-term hopes” for the market, he said.
But Leung added if the market continued to cool, developers would “have to adjust their strategies to boost sales”, at which point more agents would be “attracted back to the trade”.

The Centa-City Leading Index, a popular privately-developed tool that tracks local secondary home prices, dropped to 131.01 in the first week of February. It was the index’s lowest score since mid-November 2014 when it hit 129.61. The index was set at 100, using July 1997 as its base year.
Centaline Property Agency co-founder Shih Wing-ching urged the government to scrap its market-cooling measures, saying the market was clearly “going downward” and that “anti-speculation measures should be lifted”.
But Shih said his firm had no plan to close branches or lay off staff.
READ MORE: Hong Kong developers likely to meet 2016 sales targets despite further 10-15 per cent fall in home prices, says S&P
Authority CEO Ruby Hon Yuen-ping said the authority would step up its checks against malpractice amid sharper competition in the coming year.
“A slow property market does not mean that we shall have less work to do,” said Hon. “We shall continue checking against non-compliance and sale malpractice.”
The authority received 315 complaints against property agents last year, a decline from 399 in 2014 and 494 in 2013. But the authority expressed concerns over non-compliance in online property advertisements, for which the number of cases rose from 14 in 2014 to 27 last year.


Numbers of Hong Kong property agents and agencies dip slightly

Potential buyers at the start of Henderson Land's sale of Eltanin Square, at One International Finance Centre in Central. 24OCT15

Kowloon Development launch The Upper East project sale today at Pioneer Centre in Mong Kok. 17SEP15

Property agents gathering at a land sale in Central in October last year. Photo: Jonathan Wong

News

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Economy

Latest industry figures point to slowing market, but insiders say it’s too early to predict ‘doom and gloom’


Numbers of Hong Kong property agents and agencies dip slightly

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Latest industry figures point to slowing market, but insiders say it’s too early to predict ‘doom and gloom’

Latest industry figures point to slowing market, but insiders say it’s too early to predict ‘doom and gloom’