Hong Kong's Property Market Blows Past Another Record
Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd.’s record HK$25.2 billion ($3.2 billion) purchase of a coveted plot near Hong Kong’s former airport signals that the city’s developers are brushing off concern that expected rate increases will damp the red-hot housing market. Sun Hung Kai beat out bidders including units from CK Asset Holdings Ltd. and Henderson Land Development Co., paying almost one-and-a-half times the previous record for a land sale set in November. Hong Kong developers are bracing for the first increase in the city’s prime rate in more than a decade as U.S. rate increases and declining liquidity on the back of a weaker Hong Kong dollar add pressure on key banks to boost the 5 percent rate, a cap for mortgages.