Home Prices Continue To Scale New Highs

Property prices in Hong Kong continued its climb into record levels, despite measures by the authorities to cool down the market.

Latest figures from the Rating and Valuation Department showed the price index for private flats reached 396.8 in May. That's 1.4 percent higher than the month before.

It was the fifth straight month the index had gone up, after falling in the second half of 2018.

The previous high was 394.8 last July.

The price of large flats - those over 1,000 square feet in size - saw the largest increase last month, climbing about 3 percent.

Overall home prices are now about 10 percent higher than at the start of the year.

Rents have also returned to levels not seen since last year.

The private rental index reached 194.9 in May - up from 194.2 the month before.

But analysts say the outlook for the housing market is uncertain. They pointed out that despite an increase in prices, transactions have dropped in recent weeks, and market sentiment has been hit by concerns about the China-US trade war.