One of Macao’s leading realtors is forecasting a slump of between 8 to 11 percent in property prices this year.
In an interview with local media yesterday, the chairman of the Macau Real Estate Development Association, Peter Lok Wai Tak, said that his outlook for the property market this year was “not optimistic” due to various factors. These included the downturn in the global economy, structural changes in the local sector, the slow recovery of small and medium-sized enterprises, growing competition from cities in mainland China, as well as Sino-US tensions.
Lok said that he expected these factors to obstruct the recovery of Macao’s property market, adding that it would take up to two years before the market would begin rebounding.
In his closing speech during his association’s Lunar New Year banquet, Lok pointed out that even though the government’s removal of property curbs last April had stimulated the market in the short run, the sector was facing a downward trend as of the fourth quarter of 2024.
[See more: Residential mortgage approvals slumped by almost 18 percent last December]
He stated that the residential property transaction rate last year totalled 3,057 – a far cry from the more than 7,000 transactions registered in 2019, even if it represents a growth of 5 percent compared to 2023. To make matters worse, the average property price index last year fell by 11.7 percent, marking the fifth consecutive year that property prices in Macao have fallen since 2021.
Lok is not the only local realtor to have expressed concerns about Macao’s property market. Ung Choi Kun, the head of the Association of Property Agents and Realty Development, said earlier this week that the real estate sector was “in an unfavourable environment.”
Ung urged the authorities to implement measures that would help to revive confidence in the market among the public and investors.
Recent data released by the Monetary Authority of Macao show a month-on-month slump of 17.9 percent in the amount of new residential mortgage loans last month. Meanwhile, commercial real estate loans decreased by 22.7 percent.
