Li Ka-shing plays waiting game in China’s property market
March 9, 2014 Leave a comment
Li Ka-shing plays waiting game in China’s property market
Staff Reporter
2014-03-05
Li Ka-shing attends a press conference announcing Hutchison Whampoa’s annual financial report in Hong Kong, Feb. 28. (Photo/Xinhua)
Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man, recently expressed a more positive outlook for China’s property market, saying that the outlook is promising in the long-term based on Chinese buying habits, although current property prices remain too high, reports the Shanghai-based China Business News.
After booming growth in both volume and prices in 2013, China’s property market has approached a crossroads this year. Many observers believe Li’s comments can help stabilize the market, but more can be gleaned from his remarks, the paper said.
“The long-term outlook is good. If prices are reasonable,” according to Li. This indicates that the tycoon still considers the mainland’s property market a risk, but because Chinese tend to buy properties when they have excess money, the market is unlikely to collapse due to stable demand.
His recent comments suggest Li is playing a waiting game and he will return to the market when property prices fall to a reasonable level, the paper said.
Li sold an number of properties last year, prompting speculation that he was dumping his assets in Hong Kong and China to invest elsewhere. In an interview with Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily, Li explained the sales by saying “buying low and selling high has always been normal commercial behavior.”
Looking back over the past three years, the mainland’s property market hit bottom from the second half of 2011 until the first half of 2012 and then began to rebound. Wang Shi, chairman of leading Chinese property developer Vanke, said that Li began to retreat from the market in September 2013, selling properties in Beijing and Shanghai, which was a warning signal.
Wang said that the continuous rise in property prices in first-tier and second-tier cities is unsustainable and is similar to Japan’s extremely high property prices in the 1980s. “But Japan’s bubble burst. Remember the lesson,” he said.
Wang added that successful businesspeople always choose to sell properties when they are close to their peak.
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