Despite government efforts to dampen the market, buyers are still gobbling up luxury properties in Hong Kong. The number of transactions of more than HK$20 million ($2.6 million) was up 86 percent in the first seven months of 2010, according to Bloomberg News. Overall, prices have jumped 50 percent in the last year, even though the government has tried to restrict the market, in the wake of fears that the property bubble may soon burst.
Hong Kong has been a roller coaster ride for investors, with rising prices and the collapse of regularity. he current surge is fueled, in large part, by buyers from mainland China, who accounted for a third of new purchases in the first half of the year, the government said.
“All the government measures are not going to impact luxury housing much, because they don’t use a lot of leverage,” Nicole Wong, a real-estate analyst with CLSA Ltd., told Bloomberg.