Hong Kong private home prices fell in July, snapping a 13-month rising streak, but rents hit yet another record, official data showed on Thursday.
Home prices dropped nearly 0.5 percent month-on-month last month in their first decline since April 2025, data from the Rating and Valuation Department showed.
In July, prices of small and medium-sized flats dipped by 0.5 percent while bigger flats slid at a slower pace by 0.3 percent in the month.
Still, the costs of residential properties were up by 11.6 percent from a year ago and rose over 7 percent in the first seven months of the year.
They remained nearly 20 percent below the record high in September 2021.
Further upside is expected to be limited in the short term, and the residential market is likely to enter a consolidation phase in the coming months, CBRE said.
Recent corrections in the stock market, together with controls on outbound investment from China that could reduce the flow of capital into Hong Kong's property market, are expected to dampen investment demand, the property agency said.
Transaction volume is expected to decrease as prices consolidate in the second half of the year, CBRE said, adding that it does not necessarily indicate a deterioration in the residential property market.
Rents, on the other hand, continued their rising trend, rising by 0.8 percent in the month. It was up for nine months in a row.
Rental costs grew by 5 percent from the prior year in July and were up by 3 percent since the beginning of the year.
New arrivals, including students, together with local demand, are supporting the rental market in the peak rental season in the summer, said Ricacorp Properties' head of research Derek Chan Hoi-chiu.
Chan projected rents to grow by nearly 1 percent each in both August and September, bringing the third-quarter increase to around 3 percent.
