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Housing demand holds in Hong Kong as financing breaks contracts in Israel

Hong Kong's new Northern Metropolis flats found buyers after city sales fell in July, while Israeli buyers are cancelling off-plan contracts when financing fails.

Economics & Markets··Morning
Sunlight fills an unfinished apartment where blank geometric tokens lead toward a house key; varied completed residential towers rise beyond the open wall.

Northern Metropolis finds weekend buyers

Wheelock Properties sold 44 of the 82 flats offered through regular sale at its Park Silicon project in Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis over the launch weekend. The Kwu Tung North scheme put 100 units on the market in total: 82 by regular sale and 18 by tender. 8 tender flats sold at prices above 78.43 million Hong Kong dollars. The weekend reception came after city home sales of new and lived-in units fell about 42 per cent from June to 4,462 in July, according to Land Registry data reported with the launch. Derek Chan Hoi-chiu, head of research at Ricacorp Properties, described the slowdown in home sales and developer launches as a healthy, seasonal consolidation. He pointed to summer travel and to buyers pausing as asking prices rose after prices rebounded from their lows and steep discounts faded.[1]

Off-plan deals handed back at completion

In Israel, the financing side of the same housing pipeline is breaking. Data from the Chief Economist's Department at the Ministry of Finance put about 37,000 home purchase contract cancellations in the first half of 2026. Most involve buyers who bought before construction finished, promised to pay on completion, and could not. Chief Economist monitoring in January 2026 had recorded 1,294 cancellations of deals signed between 2023 and 2025; so far in August cancellations jumped 41 per cent from a year earlier to 1,821. Senior deputy chief economist Galit Ben Naim found the south led cancellations of 2023-2025 contracts with 475 cases, and in about two-thirds the reason reported to the Tax Authority was financial difficulty, from refused mortgages to buyers who concluded they could not fund the purchase. In a third of southern cancellations the buyer had paid nothing; adding contracts with only tens of thousands of shekels paid lifts that share to half. Contracts often set compensation at 10 per cent of the home price, yet many sellers waived it fully or partly. Average compensation in the south was about 20,000 shekels, while some cases reached 200,000 shekels or more and Tel Aviv cases about 500,000 shekels.[2]

References

  1. News sourceSouth China Morning PostSales fell 42 per cent in July; the first flats in the north found buyers at the weekend↩
  2. News sourceGlobesHomes bought on paper are handed back at completion↩
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