Hong Kong approaching Barclays' first threshold regarding home buyers' outlook

Home prices down three straight weeks.

It has been noted that the Centa-City Leading Index fell for the third consecutive week with a -0.94% w/w drop.

According to a research note from Barclays, in its report “Value or value trap?,” it highlighted one potential data point that may cause home-buying sentiment to sour is if home prices drop for more than three consecutive weeks or see a cumulative pullback in excess of 3%.

With last week’s drop marking the third straight week of home price decline, Barclays says that the approach to this first threshold has begun.

Here’s more from Barclays:

Relative to the September 2015 peak of 146.92, the CCL’s 142.98 reading is now down 2.7%. Drilling down further into the various sub-indices, last week also marked the second time in three weeks that all sub-indices declined.

The CCL (Large) dropped 0.83% w/w while the CCL (small/medium) index fell 0.95%. Across the districts, Kowloon dropped the most with a -2.17% decline.

This was followed by New Territories East (-0.84%), Hong Kong Island (-0.36%) and New Territories West (-0.23%).

At the regional level, compared to their respective all-time highs, three out of the four areas are already down by more than 3% (Kowloon -4.29%, HK Island -3.46% and NT West -3.23%).