Big Players Cash Out of Hong Kong Property (Is Vancouver Next?)

From the Wall Street Journal (Big Players Cash Out of Hong Kong Property), note some of the similarities between the commercial price increases in Vancouver’s market and Hong Kong’s market.

HONG KONG — With the government growing confident that it has halted the meteoric rise in property prices, some of this city’s biggest real-estate investors are getting out.

Several of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families are planning initial public offerings of hotels, offices and other real-estate assets in coming months, while others are lowering prices on luxury apartments to entice buyers.

Fueled by low interest rates and a flood of money from wealthy Chinese, Hong Kong’s real-estate market has boomed, with residential prices up 120% and commercial real-estate prices up 90% since the start of 2008, according to government data.

Among the sellers is New World Development Co. Ltd., a conglomerate run by the Cheng family with interests ranging from hotels to offices to jewelry stores. The family hopes to raise up to $1 billion in an offering of some of its hotel properties, people familiar with the matter said. The company owns the city’s Grand Hyatt and other well-known hotels, but it’s not clear which properties would be included in the offering.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578384220036108516.html