The government yesterday trumpeted a raft of proposals - not all of them new - to cool the property market and make sales of new flats more transparent, and threatened more if they don't do the job.
But they may have little impact. Investors certainly didn't think they would - there was no big sell-off of shares in developers.
The measures include requiring developers to sell more units in the first batch of sales at a new development - a move intended to limit their ability to manipulate prices.
The threats include an increase in stamp duty on non-luxury flats, a ban on reselling unfinished homes - a practice popular with speculators - and requiring developers to put all flats up for sale within a certain period.
The government may also extend to cheaper flats two measures recently applied to sales of flats worth HK$20 million or more - a stamp duty increase and a ban on deferring payment of duty - if there is excessive speculation in such properties.
'To reduce the risk of a property bubble forming, we are committed to combating speculative activities,' Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah said during the Legislative Council's budget debate.
