Hong Kong Luxury Rents Fall to 2-Year Low on Supply, Agent Says

Rents at 35 luxury apartment buildings dropped 22 percent from a year earlier to an average HK$25.70 ($3.30) a square foot per month, the lowest since June 2006, Ricacorp said in an e- mailed statement yesterday. The average rent fell 4.8 percent from December, the seventh straight month-on-month drop, it said.

“Most homeowners are reluctant to sell cheaply, so they preferred to rent their properties out while waiting for prices to rise, adding to supply,” Ricacorp director Eric Cheung said in the statement.

Home prices in Hong Kong have fallen as much as 25 percent from last year’s crest as the city slid into a recession in the third quarter on declining exports and domestic demand. Values on the Peak, Hong Kong’s most-expensive residential area, fell 30.5 percent in the fourth quarter, their steepest decline since the Asian financial crisis a decade ago, real estate agency CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. said this week.