Hong Kong’s Property Bubble Is Protest-Proof
Chronic undersupply and the prospect of lower interest rates are the steel bars that reinforce the city’s sky-high prices.
A reinforced steel bubble.
Photographer: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg
It will take more than a few protests to cool Hong Kong’s real estate market. The latest round of social unrest has homeowners worried that the local economy, especially the property sector, will suffer. In fact, the market is only going to get hotter – if it can weather the current round of chaos.
The city has been in turbulence since early June, amid massive demonstrations against a proposed bill that would allow criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets on three separate occasions, culminating in the unprecedented invasion and trashing of the Legislative Council building by a minority of protesters on Monday. The intermittent chaos has interrupted normal daily life, leading to the closure of transportation systems and shopping malls.