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Don't Expect Hong Kong's Vacant-Home Tax to Cool Prices

  • Developers can easily absorb tax under new rules, analysts say
  • Home prices in Hong Kong have more than doubled in past decade
Apartment buildings stand in Hong Kong.

Apartment buildings stand in Hong Kong.

Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg
By
Jinshan Hong
Updated on

Hong Kong’s plan to tax unsold new apartments may have little effect on the city’s red-hot housing market.

The levy was announced Friday by Chief Executive Carrie Lam as part of a broader effort aimed at boosting supply in the world’s least affordable property market. Yet analysts from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. say the latest impost won’t dent soaring prices.