HOME foreclosures in Hong Kong have been rising and are likely to pick up pace as more owners default on high-interest loans from unregulated lenders in a weak economy, according to specialists in distressed property.

    The territory’s authorities don’t officially track foreclosures but data from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) shows that there are a growing number of homes that are worth less than the amount paid for them. The number of homes underwater reached a five-year high of 1,432 at the end of March, and the HK$4.9 billion (US$631 million) of properties concerned is the highest since the global financial crisis in 2009. At the end of December, there were just 95 cases worth HK$418 million.

    Non-bank finance companies have seen an increase in delinquent loans since the fourth quarter of last year and foreclosures are also now picking up. Members of the Hong Kong Property Finance Association (HKPFA) now have about 10 delinquencies per 100 loans made, compared with 5-6 last year, and foreclosures are running at around 4 per 100, up from 2-3 in 2015, according to its chairman Alfred Lam.

    For a city that relies on property-related businesses for about a fifth of its economy, any major distress in the apartment market would be a body blow. Hong Kong’s gross domestic product contracted 0.4 percent in the first quarter from the last quarter of 2015, hit by falling exports and weak consumer spending as a faltering Chinese economy took a toll.

    It could also trigger questions about whether the HKMA should get a tighter grip on non-bank financing.

    Banks are heavily regulated in the Chinese territory. Seven rounds of property sector cooling measures introduced by the HKMA since 2009 have cut the official loan-to-value ratio on residential properties — the maximum amount a bank is allowed to lend on a property — to a maximum 60 percent, and as low as 40 percent in some circumstances.

    But the same does not apply to finance firms and real estate developers. And buyers have in recent years got around the bank rules by taking out loans from these other sources and borrowing up to 90 or 95 percent of the value of the property. In some cases they are even being offered the chance to borrow more than 100 percent of the value.

    That is fine when prices are rising but it doesn’t take much of a decline to put these borrowers under water — which has been happening as the Hong Kong economy has struggled and home prices have dropped 11 percent from a September 2015 high. Hong Kong household debt is also at a record high of nearly 70 percent, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

    The situation is made worse by the repeated use of apartments for collateral in other unregulated transactions, including loans for stock trading.

    “More people (are) using their properties as collateral,” said AA Property Services Managing Director Tsang Kit-chun, who auctions foreclosed properties. “Those who suffer a loss from the stock market are unable to pay back the mortgages.”

    AA has auctioned about 80 foreclosed residential properties this year and is expecting to auction more than 200 by year end, Tsang said. There were only about 100 such auctions last year.

    Another major Hong Kong auction house, CS Auctioneers, also said it expected foreclosures to increase with a worsening economy.

    Hong Kong real estate investor Jacinto Tong, whose company Gale Well Group has more than HK$35 billion invested in the residential and commercial property markets, said high interest rates demanded by finance companies was a major risk. Tong, who published a book on the stresses in Hong Kong’s residential property market last year, said there were currently about 1,000 properties where buyers had missed payments and lenders had the right to foreclose.(SD-Agencies)