The Property Market
3. The depressed condition of the property market noted in 1967-68 continued into the year under review, and no doubt contributed to the sharp reduction to $580m. in the cost of new building work completed during the year, compared with $944m. in the preceding year and the $1,017m. record set in 1965-66. Among the causes of the depression were the continuing difficulty of borrowing from banks on real estate, the still fairly large number of sales by mortgagees (see paragraph 58), and the shaken confidence of speculative investors, who during the boom years used to buy flats more or less as gambling counters in the hope of a quick resale at an enhanced price. These factors resulted in the continuance of a buyers' market in the early part of the year. Conditions, however, gradually improved, especially after May 1968, when in a further drive to stimulate home ownership, the Government-sponsored Hong Kong Building and Loan Agency Limited obtained Government approval to its raising additional finance through the issue of Government-guaranteed 5-year bonds or notes to a total value of $15m., and by the end of the year the number of assignments of units registered in the Land Office was at 21,458 the highest annual figure ever recorded. Owing to the sharp reduction in new buildings completed, the number of flats vacant in January 1969 when the Commissioner of Rating and Valuation made a survey of the situation was down by 7,214, or almost half, from 14,496 to 7,282, while the average period premises remained empty following the issue of an Occupation Permit dropped from 4.58 months at the previous survey to 3.71 months. The figures also confirmed the previous year's trend towards the building of more flats in the lower price ranges.
4. The market for new land both for industrial and other purposes also remained very depressed in the early part of the year, and in fact the number of agreements for the sale or grant of Crown land was at 113, the lowest for 17 years, there being only 10 sales by auction, 30 private treaty grants and 45 regrants of lots previously held on 75-year leases. The lack of activity was also reflected in the extremely small total of nine Exclusion Orders made under the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, which meant both fewer new projects and fewer tenants to be rehoused.
5. There were, however, still many new projects in the pipeline, being either projects planned in previous years and which developers had as a condition of obtaining an Exclusion Order under the Landlord
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