3 in 5 Hong Kongers predict home prices to jump this year

And they want 3 stamp duties to be relaxed.

Following an earlier survey on the outlook for Hong Kong home prices by the Chinese

University, another survey has found that those expecting home prices to drop have continued to decline.

According to a research note from Barclays, mortgage broker mReferral interviewed 328 people by phone and found that 62% of those surveyed expect home prices to rise this year while only 3% expect home prices to drop.

Compared to its last survey conducted in January 2014, the percentage of those expecting an increase has risen from 10% to 62% while those expecting a drop in home prices have declined from 39% to 3%.

Based on this and the Chinese University’s survey, consensus appears to have swung clearly to the bullish side of the camp.

That said, Barclays noted its curiosity over whether these surveys provide a good leading indicator or contrarian indicator to the housing market’s overall direction.

Here's more from Barclays:

Interestingly, the mReferral survey, which was conducted one week before the September 16-17 FOMC meeting, also asked what level of interest rate increase would be considered reasonable and affordable.

The level of tolerance appears to have increased somewhat. 50% of those surveyed thought an increase of less than 50bps would be reasonable, down from 56% in January; 12% thought a 100-200bps interest rate increase would be reasonable, up from 7% in the January 2014 survey.

Last but not least, the survey also asked which of the Government’s property cooling measures respondents would like to see relaxed.

A relaxation of the three stamp duties (i.e. Special Stamp Duty, Buyer Stamp Duty and Double Stamp Duty) continued to be the most sought after with 48% of respondents.

Relaxing the loan-to-value ratio was next with 31% of respondents choosing this. Lastly, 21% of respondents wanted to see a relaxation of the stress-test debt-servicing ratio.