Glonghui, July 10 | Jones Lang LaSalle today announced a review of the Hong Kong real estate market for the first half of the year and the outlook for the second half of the year, pointing out that Hong Kong's commercial property investment and residential markets are facing the dual effects of tightening bank mortgage approvals and high interest rates, and commercial property and residential prices will continue to fall over the next six months. Chairman Zeng Huanping of JLL Hong Kong said that small and medium-sized residential prices in Hong Kong are expected to drop by 10% in the second half of the year, and luxury property prices will drop by 5 to 10% due to increased new supply; and property prices will drop by more than 30% throughout the year. He believes that the current Hong Kong property market can already be compared to the 1997 property market. If the real estate market actually falls by 30% throughout the year, it is estimated that the number of negative asset cases will exceed 0.1 million. Zeng Huanping added that property prices have been falling for three years since September 2021, and the property market has never experienced such a decline since the 1997 Asian financial turmoil. He recommended that the government introduce the following bailout measures, including setting up a task force to assess the risk level of the property market and develop measures to reduce risk; providing low-interest loans to first-time buyers; and introducing additional home purchase incentives for eligible talents to include residential properties in the investment scope of the new capital investment entry plan.