Park Island, Ma Wan, Hong Kong

In the comments section of my blog posting : http://parkislandhongkong.blogspot.com/2011/12/property-prices-on-park-island-hit-new.html  a reader commented: "Where did you get this graph chart from? I want to view the source please, I've looked at Midland, Centadata, gohome and property.hk but they show different results to what you have on this blog." Rather than try to anwer the question in the comments section of that posting, I will try to address it here. The data and the HK property transaction graph were taken from Centaline property: www.hk.centadata.com Specifically for Park Island, see: http://hk.centadata.com/pih09/pih09/estate.aspx?type=3&code=WDPPWPPEPB&lang=eng&source=data I think Centadata is based on results done though the Centaline agency, and it seems to me they update the results daily. So you will see changes in the price graph on a daily basis, depending upon the most recent transactions. That is also where I got the price data for...

I was sent an email today by a reader of my blog who wants to buy an apartment on Park Island and is finding that every apartment for sale is at a minimum 15-20% above the valuation offered by banks for mortgage purposes. My advice to him, was that this phenomenon is not only something that happens on Park Island. In Hong Kong, in a "rising market" it is in fact the norm that when you buy a place it will usually be at a price 10-15% above bank val. There are many reasons for this, but basically the banks are somewhat conservative, and also use valuation figures of transactions that closed 2-3 months ago. Since I have been in HK since 1997, its always been that way. The potential buyer was looking at an apartment offered at 5 million for 712 square foot. He told me that HSBC values it at 4.4m and Bank Of China values it at 4.52m, and wanted to know if 5m was a "fair price". My advice on this is as follows: Some “local banks” will give it a slightly higher valuatio...