Hong Kong

THERE'S a grim phenomenon in Hong Kong's real estate market: discounts of as much as 50 per cent for home-seekers willing to live in an apartment where a murder has occurred.

Unnatural deaths typically result in rental discounts of 10 per cent to 20 per cent and can be more than double that for sinister killings, according to Sammy Po, head of the residential department of realtor Midland Holdings. Chinese believe such places, known as "hung jaak", the Cantonese term for "haunted apartments", are unlucky, he said.