World’s most expensive housing market just got even pricier

HONG KONG: The world’s priciest housing market got even more expensive in the second quarter.

Hong Kong’s housing affordability ratio, which measures the proportion of income spent on mortgages, worsened to about 67 per cent for the quarter, the government said Friday, up from 56 per cent in the year-earlier period.

The latest figures underscore the challenges that incoming Chief Executive Carrie Lam faces in taming home prices in a city where it now takes a household 18 years of median income to buy a home, according to data from Demographia. Compared with the 1997 peak, overall flat prices in June were 94 per cent higher, according to government data.

The number of residential transactions surged 43 per cent to 18,892 in the second quarter, fuelling rising prices. Centaline Property’s Centa-City Leading Index of existing home prices surged to a record high 160.3 July 30. The index has climbed 11 per cent this year, and has jumped more than 50 per cent in the past five years.