Real estate still seen in HK as safest store of wealth

HONG KONG'S towering home prices might rise another 10 per cent this year. All the more reason to shun developers and buy retail or even office landlords.

That might not make sense at first glance, but the real estate boom has not benefited developers in the city much in the last seven years.

There has been a disconnect, as JPMorgan Chase analyst Cusson Leung noted, between the city's residential prices - up 200 per cent since 2009 - and stocks such as Li Ka-shing's CK Asset Holdings and Henderson Land Development.