Hong Kong rents are rising again as overseas workers return, a recovery that contrasts with the cooling market in rival financial hub Singapore.
Hong Kong rents rebounded from their first-quarter decline to climb 2.8% in the second quarter of 2023, Knight Frank data show. While Singapore recorded the same pace of gains, growth in the latter city’s rents was the weakest since 2021 and down from a recent peak rate of 8.6%.
The push to reverse a brain drain during the pandemic is encouraging new arrivals to target Hong Kong neighborhoods popular with professionals, such as Soho and Kennedy Town. In comparable districts in Singapore, growth rates are now about half that as stellar figures from previous years give way to relatively lackluster increases.
Read the full story on Bloomberg here.