Exodus won't dent property market, says Shih Wing-ching

Centaline Property Agency co-founder Shih Wing-ching does not think the likely migration of many Hong Kong citizens with British National (Overseas) status to the United Kingdom will have much impact on the local property market.

It is not difficult for the secondary market to absorb an extra supply of about 10,800 flats each year over the next five years, he wrote in a column on local media.

However, Patrick Wong, a senior analyst of Asia Pacific real estate from Bloomberg Intelligence, believes Hong Kong's home vacancy rate may increase to more than 5 percent under the UK's new immigration policy.

Wong added that the residential rental yield could slip to a new low of below 2 percent in 2021 on a possible surge of units available for leasing.

Meanwhile, stamp duty collected from property transactions fell 25 percent month-on-month to about HK$537 million in January and only four cases of double stamp duty imposed on non-residential properties were recorded, plunging 99 percent to a record low, according to the Inland Revenue Department.

The amount of buyer's stamp duty collected more than doubled to HK$143 million from a month before and the amount of double stamp duty applied to residential property transactions dropped by 26.8 percent month-on-month to HK$340.5 million last month.

In other property news, the Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon, has applied to the Town Planning Board to rezone a village-type development site in Wong Yue Tan - which Wheelock Properties loaned to the charity organization in 2019 - into a transitional housing providing 1,236 flats.

In retail news, PwC forecasts a 15 percent growth in Hong Kong's annual retail sales to HK$376 billion this year, after a decline of 24.3 percent to HK$326 billion in 2020.

The firm estimates local retail sales in January will reach HK$32.5 billion, down around 14 percent compared to a year ago. In contrast, a 36 percent year-on-year increase to HK$31 billion in retail sales is expected in February, in view of the low base and Lunar New Year.