Let's see how this forecast from Citibank in today's South China Morning Post performs shall we? It predicts home prices to drop by 7% in the second half.
How do they know with such accuracy? Well, they don't of course. And it's a bit of a shame on the SCMP to report it as if it's not spurious accuracy.
I've had a quick look at performances of past predictions of home price movements in HK and they don't stack up at all well against actual performance. The analysts are flat out getting the direction right, let alone nailing a specific percentage movement up or down. *For example
We own property in Hong Kong. We don't really mind which way prices go because we are not at all leveraged. If prices go up, well fine — though I worry about affordability for first-time buyers. So if prices go down, well that's fine too... first-time buyers as well as ourselves can more easily buy. Property remains a great asset to hold.
I'll try to remember to come back in six months to see how the predictive geniuses at Citibank have performed.
LATER: *Bocom International Property, in December 2016, predicted a 30% fall in housing prices in 2017.
Look at what happened in fact. Exactly at the time he made that prediction, prices shot up. This is a common thing. In other words, take any prediction of house price movement, at least in Hong Kong, with a bucketload of salt.
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| Prices didn't just not drop in 2017. They rose over 20% ! |
