Government Plays Down Negative Equity Fears

The newly installed secretary for financial services and the treasury, Christopher Hui, on Saturday played down concerns over the health of the property market, despite a surge in homeowners seeing the value of their homes fall below the outstanding balance on their mortgage loans.

The Monetary Authority has reported that the number of residential mortgage loans in negative equity jumped two-fold from December to more than 380 cases.

But Hui said the financial market overall is stable.

He also pointed out that the government has been monitoring risks in the home market while trying to rejuvenate the sagging local economy.

“Right now, the immediate priority is definitely to revive the economy because after all, we have been subject to many restrictions as all of you can imagine over the past few months because of Covid-19,” Hui said.

“The measures that are subject to Legco approval as you have seen over the past few days, I think it’s definitely something that we want to do in order to provide a sort of foundation for our economic recovery.”