A RISE in the property market is tipped by a new financial indicator: passion.
Sales are being boosted by a rise in the divorce rate, which turns one household into two.
''While the number of marriages is forecast to decline slowly in the medium term, the number of divorces is likely to move in the opposite direction at a much faster rate,'' says a 1993 property prospects report recently published by Wardley James Capel.
The fewer happy marriages, the more property sales, you see.
In 1982, the number of marriages almost exactly matched the number of new flats taken up.
But in recent years, the ratio has been much lower, between 0.57 (1990) and 0.68 (1991), says the report.
This means that Hongkong is becoming increasingly full of people living in sin. This is not unrelated to the emigration issue, the researchers reckon.
