Fear of property market crash looms in Hong Kong

Home prices in Hong Kong are the highest in the world but people are still desperate to get their own piece of real estate.

The city has experienced a buying spree for nearly a year, pushing home prices up 23 percent.

The last time a similar frenzy happened in 1997 and the market crashed soon after.

Al Jazeera’s Divya Gopalan reports from Hong kong.

[garanromia]

Only thing I can say is, if you can get out of HK then do it.

[deezeed]

Give Shenzhen are the surrounding areas to HK and build a rail line that can transport the people.

[truejayoh]

So... its been over a year. wheres the crash?

[FreeBreakUpSex]

With prices so high it is probably not worth the risk considering they have nuclear plants there . Its not if but when a nuclear power plant loses water for a few hours it can melt down, then you have to run away and leave pets and everything including the graveyards behind, not a good place to have hard earned money tied up because you will lose it .

[lausukchan]

1997 is different, there was no strict regulations, high interest rate and many speculators, nowadays, low interest rate, almost 100% are end users as the straight regulations and most important of all, people have money, yes, as if they have a money printing machine at home, HKD130, 000 per sq. foot, if you do not have a money printing machine, how can you afford that?

[Btt]

The local government own half of all properties available. They rent this to residents with low income at below market rates.

This results in everyone else fighting for only 50% of the properties

[wongheungwing]

I can honestly say that the video is quite far away from reality.
Our take-home income is actually among the highest in the world if you just consider the group of people who can afford to invest in real estate. My family makes around uss90, 000 a year and our actual tax rate after all the deductibles is 0.9% only.
My mortgage debt is about 6 years of my family's annual income. And we are in the middle low level as far as social status is concerned.