The local government proposed last week to axe all cooling measures for the property market, and representatives of the Centaline Macau and Hengqin Property Agency said yesterday they believed that the bill will help increase liquidity in the local real-estate market and restore residents and investors’ confidence in entering the market, expecting the average monthly transaction volume in this year’s second quarter to return to the 1,000 level.
Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon said at Friday’s Executive Council that over a period of time in the past, in order to maintain the stable development of the property market, a series of real-estate demand-side management measures, including taxation and mortgage rules, had been formulated and implemented since 2010. Among them, the taxation measures included Special Stamp Duty (SSD), Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) and Acquisition Stamp Duty (ASD), Cheong said, adding that taking into account the relatively abundant supply of various types of housing in recent years, conditions were now in place for the enactment of the bill on the abolition of demand-side management measures for residential properties, thereby abolishing the Special Stamp Duty, Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty, and Acquisition Stamp Duty.
The Legislative Assembly (AL) will introduce, debate and vote on the bill at 3 p.m. today, based on an urgent legislative procedure requested by the government.
The Hong Kong real-estate agency’s local office yesterday held a press conference at ICBC Tower in Nam Van where its senior staff members provided a review of the local property market in the first quarter of this year.
A senior staff member said during the press conference he believed that the removal of Macau’s cooling measures would help increase liquidity in the local real-estate market, restore the confidence of residents and investors alike in entering the market, and unleash the purchasing power of both local and non-local residents, adding that coupled with the active promotion of properties by developers to build up their inventories, he expected the average number of transactions per month in the second quarter to reach 1,000, expecting stabilisation in property prices.
His colleague said that there was no need to worry about speculation in Macau’s property market after the axing of the cooling measures, adding that as the real-estate markets in different places are now competing with each other and prospective buyers are comparing properties in Macau, Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Hengqin, he believed that there was little chance of prices going up significantly in the local property market at this stage.
The volume of residential market transactions was expected to increase, but may not immediately lead to price increases, another senior representative said, adding that property developers who have a lot of inventory in hand would not be in a hurry to increase prices, in order to get rid of their inventory, while second-hand property owners were expected to suspend the sale of their properties and would release them only when property prices rebound.
This photo taken yesterday shows residential buildings on Rua das Estalagens (“Street of the Inns”). – Photo: Yuki Lei
