United States: HIBOR significant decline to drive Hong Kong property market "price stabilization and volume increase".

CEO of Midland Holding (Residential), Ma Taiyang, pointed out that the Federal Reserve, as expected by the market, maintained interest rates unchanged. Major banks in Hong Kong also kept their preferential interest rates unchanged, and overall interest rate trends remained relatively stable. However, in the past month since May, the interbank offered rate in Hong Kong has fallen significantly, leading to a significant decrease in the HIBOR rate. With today's HIBOR rate at 1.03%, the HIBOR rate is at 2.33% (calculated as H+1.3%), which is a decrease of over 1% compared to the capped rate of 3.5%. This not only eases the burden on homeowners, but also drives demand for rental conversions to purchases and long-term investments. Furthermore, with the positive news of the Hong Kong stock market performing well and the high reduction in potential private residential supply, the property market in Hong Kong is showing a pattern of "stable prices and increasing volume". Calculating from the decline in the HIBOR rate starting in May, the cumulative number of first-hand transactions in the past 3 months has reached 5706 transactions, an increase of about 20% compared to around 4755 transactions from February to April. The transaction amount has also increased from around HK$40.3 billion to around HK$53.4 billion, an increase of over 30%. With the support of many positive factors, property prices in Hong Kong have seen a breakthrough. According to the "Midland Property Price Index", the latest data on July 28th was 128.19 points, showing a slight increase of 0.05% for the year, finally turning the trend from decline to increase within the year. In terms of transactions, the new property market in July continued to thrive, with an expected first-hand transaction volume surpassing 2000 transactions in July, an increase of over 30% compared to around 1500 transactions for the entire month of June. Ma Taiyang expects that in August, with the support of a positive stock market and continued low interest rates, along with several new projects being launched consecutively, and developers speeding up the sale of remaining inventory, the momentum of the first-hand market transactions is expected to continue to be strong. The first-hand transaction volume in August is expected to remain above 2000 transactions, marking the first time since May 2019 that this volume has been surpassed for two consecutive months.