Now they are protesting against the new measures.....

It is not even 2 weeks ago the Government introduced new measures to cool down the completely overheated property market. See the posts below.
So almost immediately the "property-sharks" are biting back.
Last week one spokesman from one main developer said "this new measures
would mainly hurt the end-user" - means people who want to buy a property
to use for themselves (what actually still should be the main reason to buy some
appartment - or ?). Because if they buy after the day of the new measures have
come into force and then they suddenly loose their job or have to sell the
appartment because of some financial problems. This point is not really correct:
If you buy today with the purpose to use it for your own living this is something
people are planning for a long time and not in a short term thinking. So if your job
situation or financial situation is weak you will not consider to buy anyhow. This point
maybe is true for only a very small percentage of buyers - so NO POINT AT ALL !
But as the news is telling transactions are very little after the measures have been
introduced - because all the gamblers (speculators) are scared away from buying -
THIS IS VERY CLEAR.
And now the agencies start crying & weeping: If the Government does not revert that
new measures 1,000 of agencies maybe closed & 10,000 of agents will loose their jobs !
GOOD ! Another logical step to cool down the market. Alone in my street are 8 agencies
in a distance of 200 meters - they are all offering the same appartments !
They want the Government to impose a profit-tax. Not a really good idea as people have
many possibilities to avoid this.
So now all this guys (price pushers) who were actually one of the reason that
the prices are "sky-high" are in big trouble, because their commission income for finished
transactions for the next weeks, months will decrease significantly. As they get a lousy basis
pay here we have another reason for this property prices - in past months (1 - 2 years) they
were trying everything to artificially push up prices into completely unreasonable heights.
The higher they sell the more they earn - so why keep the prices low ? They just told sellers to increase the initial asking price - this is snowball - system. If one is starting to do so the others will follow suit soon.
They want to held a protest march now on the coming weekend in Central !

Some new measurements to cool the property market

Please read the 2 articles from SCMP of today. I am not sure if this will significantly help - but lets see. There must be more restrictions for mainland buyers in my opinion for example set up a quota for how many properties a private person / or company is allowed to buy. Check of the origin of the money which is used to buy the property. Also in general more transparency is needed like a buyers register (which will not collide w any "privacy laws".) Please read the 2 articles - just click on them for big size reading.

HK PROPERTY - HOW TO PUSH UP THE PRICE

OKAY ! This is just blank theory - but maybe there is some truth behind. I am living in a nice estate in the NT - 2 phases built - the first one around 7 years ago finished. So today my wife tells me...hey in Block 9 even without a balcony one flat was sold for HKD 6.6 Mio.....My first reaction was ..."This is fake or scam"...So later I checked the transaction records:
Flat 38C sold for HKD 6.6 Mio in middle of October 2010 (almost 95% profit compared with 1st transaction) - then after more checking: Same Block flat 48C sold for 6.26 Mio in July 2010 (almost 85% profit compared with 1st transaction). My guess it is / was the same owner - superstitious number ending with 8 - almost same 1st transaction date & almost same 2nd transaction for each almost double the price.
So if I am wrong then this is pure speculation:
1) You have a company interested in speculation in property
2) You buy several appartments in the same estate
3) You mostly keep them empty / unoccupied
4) You have a second company
5) At the right moment your company 1 sells the property to your company 2 for an extremly high price compared with the 1st transaction (75% -90% profit)
6) Is this a good or a bad deal ?
7) It is not really a good deal at all - because you are only moving the money from the left side of your pocket to the right side of your pocket
8) But it is a good deal if your companies are involved in property dealing - means you are one of the HK property agents and you are using "con-man" companies or whatever possible abstruse company constellations to handle this kind of transactions.
9) Then it is a very good deal - because your transaction will be listed in one of the pages of a special section in APPLE DAILY or other property gazettes and everybody will say "oh wow the prices are still going up"
10) Multiply this kind of idea / system by 100 - you are already manipulating the market in a decent way.
So why not introducing a scheme to have a register about who is selling & buying:
1) For private sellers / buyers just issue the first numbers of their ID Card
2) For company sellers / buyers issue the first part of the company name or the first 5 digits of their business registration number
This could help to bring some transperancy into the transactions.
Update 17.11.10: Surely if the toilet bowl & seat & water taps are pure gold then the price for this 38C & 48C is maybe reasonable (there are two toilets in each flat & and a lot of water taps)