Hong Kong’s property buyers are rushing for the sidelines to wait out city’s festering political crisis and almost-daily protest rallies

Sales of lived-in homes will fall 35.5 per cent to a five-month low in July, with the transacted value dropping by 33.7 per cent, according to a forecast by Centaline

Even the flipping of car-parking space, a unique short-term speculation in Hong Kong, fell by 52.4 per cent this month to fewer than 600 lots, Midland Realty said

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Police fire tear gas to protesters in Admiralty during a protest to demand authorities scrapping a proposed extradition bill at Harcourt Road in Hong Kong on 12 June 2019. Photo: SCMP/K Y Cheng

Published: 8:30am, 21 Jul 2019Updated: 3:02am, 23 Jul 2019

Hong Kong’s residents are rushing for the sidelines in the city’s property market, as a political crisis festers while street rallies that have persisted for more than a month have deteriorated into violence.

Sales of lived-in homes will fall 35.5 per cent to a five-month low of 2,600 transactions in July, with the value expected to drop 33.7 per cent to HK$24 billion (US$3.07 billion), according to a forecast by Centaline Property Agency. Even the flipping of car-parking space - a unique short-term speculation in land-scarce Hong Kong - has already fallen by 52.4 per cent to fewer than 600 lots this month, from 1,261 last year, said Midland Realty.

“Buyers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude,” as sentiments had been “affected by a series of incidents such as the protest rallies against the controversial extradition bill, and a developer who reneged on its commercial plot in the former Kai Tak airport,” said Wong Leung-sing, senior associate director of research at Centaline.

The downbeat forecast for July is a blow to Hong Kong’s property bull run, which had barely begun to recover its pace after a five-month stumble. HSBC and Bank of China (Hong Kong) cut their valuations of used homes in the New Territories and Kowloon on July 9, a month after an estimated 1 million people marched on the streets to oppose the city’s controversial extradition bill.

Even though the bill is essentially “dead” according to Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, rallies persisted almost everyday, and are showing signs of deteriorating into violence. On Saturday, police made the largest seizure of the home-made explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and arrested a man in connection with building an arsenal of weapons and fire-bombs on the eve of another major protest rally.