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Home Sales to Accelerate in Hong Kong this New Year

Midland Holdings Ltd., a real estate giant in Hong Kong, declared that more houses will sell in 2013 and more properties are expected to rise, despite the continuing measures of the government to cool the real estate markets.

Experts predict the country's stable domestic consumption and increasingly expanding exports will give the country's economy a positive surge in 2013. The Gross Domestic product growth is expected to increase by 3 percent, reports PropertyHK.

Hong Kong's real estate market didn't perform well in 2012. The total number of houses sold in the year plummeted down to 82,700, which was 86,000 in 2011. New home purchases rose to 13,000 from 10,500 in 2011, but vacated house sales slumped by 7 percent or more, reports Bloomberg.

The government, in its attempt to lower the speculations surrounding the real estate markets of the city, increased the duty rates and introduced an additional 15 percent Buyer's Stamp Duty on suburban properties that were bought by non-permanent Hong Kong residents, reports China.org.

Due to the government regulations, property sales took a blow and the heated market settled down a little. However, important players of the housing sector remain optimistic about the market and the house price rates.

"We do not think these measures address the real underlying forces that are pushing up home prices now, which we think are an attractive rental yield and the urge to preserve capital in a QE world," Christiaan Tuntono, analyst at Credit Suisse, told China.org.

"You can't have new record every year so volume will slow down a bit. We'll be doing a bit of catching up in the next six months and launching quite a few projects," Victor Lui, Deputy M.D of Sun Hang Kai Properties Ltd., told Bloomberg.


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