30 June 2017 - In a discussion with SCMP, Joshua Han Miller, CEO of OKAY.com, talks about Hong Kong’s overheated market and draws a comparison between current state versus that of 1997.
Miller explains that Hong Kong today in under very different conditions, to the exogenous factors, sparked by the Thai currency collapse.
"Hong Kong has not had any kind of frenzied buying that typically leads up to a crash,” Miller says, citing “normalized activity” of 5,000 to 7,000 transactions per month in 2017, is in line with the long-term average over the past 10 years.
Lending is growing at a healthier – read, slower – rate, and loan-to-value debt levels are now hovering around 50 per cent, compared to over 60 per cent two decades earlier and 70 to 80 per cent in other global markets. More importantly, Miller says, interest rates are “nothing like the 9+ per cent in 1997”. The rising interest rate environment we’re experiencing now “is a sign of growth, not a bubble”, he adds. “Only once rates reach high levels do property prices become negatively impacted.”
Read the full SCMP story here.
