Park Island, Ma Wan, Hong Kong

Tom Holland piece in his SCMP Monitor Column dated August 27, 2012 has commented on the question many are asking. Is Hong Kong property overvalued? He writes: As Hong Kong property prices set new highs, fears continue to mount that the market is a momentum-driven bubble in imminent danger of bursting. Yet, although some softening of prices is possible given the weakness of the global trade cycle and the mainland's slowing growth rate, this column has long argued that there is little threat of a 1997-style crash any time soon. The reason is simple: although prices have gained dramatically over the last few years, there is no sign that the current boom - unlike the one in 1997 - has been propelled by a rapid increase in leverage. If you doubt that - and many readers do - here is a little more evidence. The second chart shows the growth in value of outstanding mortgages plotted against the nominal growth rate of Hong Kong's economy. In the run-up to 1997, the rise in mortga

Agents on Park Island are reporting that a number of "new records" for property prices, both apartments for rent and for sale were achieved this month. Transaction values also have noticably picked up after being quite low, historically, over the last year. I'm trying to get some exact data from agents and then will put it up here. What is happening on Park Island is probably a reflection of what is happening in general for the Hong Kong property market, which seems to be super high priced property is slowing or falling (both rentals and sales prices), with low and medium priced property continuing to increase.

I received the following email from someone moving to Hong Kong and wondering were to live. My response is posted below (personal details removed). If readers of the Park Island Blog want to post a comment (either on the initial email enquiry, or on my response, feel free to do so!) Hi, I will be moving to Hong Kong some time next month. I've just started looking for accommodation and trying to speak to people who have experience of living in Hong Kong. We're a small family - myself, my wife and our 3 months old baby girl. Not quite into the city night life to be honest. So we prefer to live away from hustle bustle in a community setting where we will hopefully make family friends. I really don't mind 30-40 mins of commute each way. Office is in Olympic MTR area. First 3 months, however, I'll work in Central. Your blog provided a lot of good info on Park Island. I am hoping to get your views on how you think the construction quality and facilities in PI compar

I stole this picture from The Ma Wan Network web-page :) Sunset over the ocean from Ma Wan At some point I plan to write a full posting about the The Ma Wan Network. It's really quite a good resource for Park Island residents.

Below are some new photos of the old Chinese village on Ma Wan. To get there, head towards the Noah's Arc main entrance. Near the man-made "nature park", you will see a path. This leads down to the village, so follow that down.  I already did a previous post about the Ma Wan old village here: http://parkislandhongkong.blogspot.com/2011/03/old-village-on-ma-wan.html Below are some photos of the old village on Ma Wan I took on a recent hike, this time with a better camera. This Ma Wan village house must have looked nice in its prime! Banana trees on Ma Wan  Ma Wan Old Village Are you wondering what on earth that strange white building in the backround is? That is the new Solar Tower being built on Ma Wan. It will apparently be used as Hong Kong's leading astronomy observation center. I presume they chose Ma Wan for the cleaner air and less light pollution, but I would think that no-where in Hong Kong is really ideal for astronomic observation.

A few random photos I took around Park Island with my new i-phone, trying to be a little fancy with the panoramic mode. The bridge to Park Island (Tsing Ma Bridge) Looking over the Park Island Piazza and the Blue Blue Club pools The beach on Park Island Park Island Beach Photo of Park Island Estate, the ocean, and the Tsing Ma Bridge View of the apartments on Park Island A sunny day on Park Island Tree-lined boulevard along the Park Island Estate Towers (ocean is on the left). 

Seems prices on our island hit a record high last week, now just a touch short off 6000psf. http://hk.centadata.com/cci/estate_info_e.aspx?id=008600 A few comments to consider when interpreting the data, and deciding whether to buy or sell: 1 - Will prices hold up during a new financial crisis coming from Europe? 2 - Park Island prices migh be up, how how about rentals? If rentals are not also rising then yields are dropping (unless interest rates have dropped, which they cannot really do as they are already all time lows). 3 - How about transaction volumes? If prices are up, but in the context of transaction volume being very low, what does this mean. 4 - Are prices on Park Island basically mirroring HK property prices trends, or is Park Island over (or under) performing HK generally.