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Buy a house whenever you get married
Damon Ho
8th April 2023
Hong Kong is a financial center, and the people who grew up in Hong Kong has been exposed to it since childhood. In fact, many Hong Kongers like to invest in stocks. However, the stock market is such a sophisticated investment vehicle, which is easy to cause huge loss to smart investors. Many investors buy and sell for decades, but they won’t earn profit at all. When they get older, some people are urged by their wives to buy an apartment to form a family. Most of them will own nothing after retirement if they do not buy a flat when they got married.
The author knows an investor who speculated on U.S. stocks three decades ago and earned several thousands of US dollar a day if brought and sold at the right time. Every time I talk to him, he always talks about how much he earned last month. As such investors, they typically only talk about how much they have earned, and when they get losses, they usually keep a mouth shut.
This investor got married twenty years ago, and we kept in touch since then. One year after his marriage, the author got a chance to have a tea chat with him. I asked him how was going on his US stocks investment? He replied that he had just bought  a house at his wife's request, and there was no time for him to speculate on U.S. stocks. Years later, his property's market value has been reaching 15 million in 2023, nearly triple that of 2004. Most investors who focus on stock investment still need to rent a flat when they are ready to retire.
The author has another experienced stockbroker friend, and he is also involved in stock investment himself, but the results is unsatisfactory. He also got married about two decades ago, and his wife also urged him to buy an apartment after their marriage. In consequence, he bought a flat in China and Hong Kong respectively two years later. Until now, these two flats’ worth are appreciated four times more than purchasing price.
The author has another friend, who just retired last year, he predicted that the property market was going to crash. In order to avoid potential loss, he sold his self-use property and cashed out eight million HK dollars. He spent five million to buy Link Real Estate Investment Trust (Link)as a long-term investment. This investor bought Link last year with market value of seventy HK dollar per share. Nowadays, that stock has fallen by 30% to about fifty HK dollar per share. His book loss is 1.5 million HK dollar. Ironically, the premises he sold has also fallen to seven million, but it has rebounded back to 7.5 million HK dollar so far this year.
This investor asked the author, should I sell Link now and look for other investment opportunities. At that time, the author does not dare to comment. In fact, the time he bought Link last year, the author just sold the same stock all at the same time. Since last year, nearly all the investment vehicles have been recorded losses, in the amid of these instruments, urban residential premises showed stronger resilience to adverse environment. So, how can it be missed from the investment portfolio?
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The Airports Council International (ACI) World determined Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) to have loaded the highest volume of cargo in 2022 at 4,199,196 metric tonnes. HKIA maintained its top rank despite a decrease of 16.4% in air cargo volume compared to 2021.
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US employers added just 236,000 jobs in March, coming in below expectations and indicating that the labor market is cooling off amid the Federal Reserve’s yearlong rate-hiking campaign to chill inflation. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, according to the March jobs report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists were expecting a net gain of 239,000 jobs for the month and a jobless rate of 3.6%, according to Refinitiv. This is the first jobs report in 12 months that came in below expectations.
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5. Valuation needs to be reviewed for successful sale 2023-04-12 08:59:03
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Last year, the government missed its revenue target of $420b (US$54b) under the 2021-2022 land sale programme, mustering only $71.7b (US$219m). Hannah Jeong, an expert from Colliers, said the factors that led to this failure boiled down to faulty valuation. To ensure the success of Hong Kong land sales for 2023-2024, Jeong advised the government to reflect on market conditions in their valuations, given that developers, investors, and market players are under financial pressure due to interest rate hikes. “Getting a new land with a significant billion dollars amount was not really an easy decision for many developers,” Jeong told Hong Kong Business. “I suggest that they have a discussion with different market players like surveyors, developers, and investors so that they understand (the sentiment)
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8. Homebuyers are sensitive to mortgage rates 2023-04-15 12:37:12
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