Latest news with #MartinWong
Time of India
28-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Home prices in Hong Kong fall 0.5% in March
HONG KONG : Hong Kong's home prices slipped for a fourth month in March, government figures showed on Monday, as the ailing property market faced more economic headwinds. By the numbers Private home prices fell 0.5% in March from the month before, following a revised 0.6% decline in February, data from the Rating and Valuation Department showed. The March price index was the lowest since July 2016. Why its important Home prices in Hong Kong , one of the world's most unaffordable cities, have tumbled nearly 30% from a 2021 peak, hurt by higher mortgage rates , a weak economic outlook, and poor demand as many professionals have left the territory. Authorities tried to prop up the sector last year, lifting all curbs on property purchases and relaxing down payment ratios, but housing demand has remained soft. Market comments Realtors forecast home prices in 2025 could rise or fall by 5%, depending on the pace of official rate cuts and the severity of trade tensions between China and the United States. Eddie Kwok, executive director of real estate consultancy CBRE, said investment appetite was again negatively affected in April due to global uncertainty, and it could lead to a slight decrease in home prices in the next few months as potential buyers take a wait-and-see approach. Martin Wong, director of Knight Frank, said the U.S. might lower interest rates again soon to stimulate the economy, and Hong Kong would follow suit and benefit the property market. Context The government in February cut the stamp duty for small home transactions. Homes with values of HK$3 million to HK$4 million ($385,847-$514,462) now have to pay just HK$100 in stamp duty, instead of up to HK$60,000. Property agents said the move could encourage first-time buyers and lift home transactions by 5%-10%. Major banks lowered their best Hong Kong lending rate in December by 25 basis points for the third time last year. The territory's currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar, but local banks make their own rate decisions.
Business Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Hong Kong home prices fall for a fourth month in March
[HONG KONG] Hong Kong's home prices slipped for a fourth month in March, government figures showed on Monday (Apr 28), as the ailing property market faced more economic headwinds. Private home prices fell 0.5 per cent in March from the month before, following a revised 0.6 per cent decline in February, data from the Rating and Valuation Department showed. The March price index was the lowest since July 2016. Prices down Home prices in Hong Kong, one of the world's most unaffordable cities, have tumbled nearly 30 per cent from a 2021 peak, hurt by higher mortgage rates, a weak economic outlook, and poor demand as many professionals have left the territory. Authorities tried to prop up the sector last year, lifting all curbs on property purchases and relaxing down payment ratios, but housing demand has remained soft. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Tuesday, 12 pm Property Insights Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond. Sign Up Sign Up Realtors forecast home prices in 2025 could rise or fall by 5 per cent, depending on the pace of official rate cuts and the severity of trade tensions between China and the US. Eddie Kwok, the executive director of real estate consultancy CBRE, said investment appetite was again negatively affected in April due to global uncertainty, and it could lead to a slight decrease in home prices in the next few months as potential buyers take a wait-and-see approach. Knight Frank director Martin Wong said the US might lower interest rates again soon to stimulate the economy, and Hong Kong would follow suit and benefit the property market. The government in February cut the stamp duty for small home transactions. Homes with values of HK$3 million to HK$4 million (S$507,100 to S$676,100) now have to pay just HK$100 in stamp duty, instead of up to HK$60,000. Property agents said the move could encourage first-time buyers and lift home transactions by 5 to 10 per cent. Major banks lowered their best Hong Kong lending rate in December by 25 basis points for the third time last year. The territory's currency is pegged to the US dollar, but local banks make their own rate decisions. REUTERS
New Straits Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
Hong Kong home prices fall for a fourth month in March
HONG KONG: Hong Kong's home prices slipped for a fourth month in March, government figures showed on Monday, as the ailing property market faced more economic headwinds. BY THE NUMBERS Private home prices fell 0.5 per cent in March from the month before, following a revised 0.6 per cent decline in February, data from the Rating and Valuation Department showed. The March price index was the lowest since July 2016. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Home prices in Hong Kong, one of the world's most unaffordable cities, have tumbled nearly 30 per cent from a 2021 peak, hurt by higher mortgage rates, a weak economic outlook, and poor demand as many professionals have left the territory. Authorities tried to prop up the sector last year, lifting all curbs on property purchases and relaxing down payment ratios, but housing demand has remained soft. MARKET COMMENTS Realtors forecast home prices in 2025 could rise or fall by five per cent, depending on the pace of official rate cuts and the severity of trade tensions between China and the United States. Eddie Kwok, executive director of real estate consultancy CBRE, said investment appetite was again negatively affected in April due to global uncertainty, and it could lead to a slight decrease in home prices in the next few months as potential buyers take a wait-and-see approach. Martin Wong, director of Knight Frank, said the US might lower interest rates again soon to stimulate the economy, and Hong Kong would follow suit and benefit the property market. CONTEXT The government in February cut the stamp duty for small home transactions. Homes with values of HK$3 million to HK$4 million (US$385,847-US$514,462) now have to pay just HK$100 in stamp duty, instead of up to HK$60,000. Property agents said the move could encourage first-time buyers and lift home transactions by five to 10 per cent. Major banks lowered their best Hong Kong lending rate in December by 25 basis points for the third time last year. The territory's currency is pegged to the US dollar, but local banks make their own rate decisions.
Reuters
28-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Hong Kong home prices fall for a fourth month in March
HONG KONG, April 28 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's home prices slipped for a fourth month in March, government figures showed on Monday, as the ailing property market faced more economic headwinds. BY THE NUMBERS Private home prices fell 0.5% in March from the month before, following a revised 0.6% decline in February, data from the Rating and Valuation Department showed. The March price index was the lowest since July 2016. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Home prices in Hong Kong, one of the world's most unaffordable cities, have tumbled nearly 30% from a 2021 peak, hurt by higher mortgage rates, a weak economic outlook, and poor demand as many professionals have left the territory. Authorities tried to prop up the sector last year, lifting all curbs on property purchases and relaxing down payment ratios, but housing demand has remained soft. MARKET COMMENTS Realtors forecast home prices in 2025 could rise or fall by 5%, depending on the pace of official rate cuts and the severity of trade tensions between China and the United States. Eddie Kwok, executive director of real estate consultancy CBRE, said investment appetite was again negatively affected in April due to global uncertainty, and it could lead to a slight decrease in home prices in the next few months as potential buyers take a wait-and-see approach. Martin Wong, director of Knight Frank, said the U.S. might lower interest rates again soon to stimulate the economy, and Hong Kong would follow suit and benefit the property market. CONTEXT The government in February cut the stamp duty for small home transactions. Homes with values of HK$3 million to HK$4 million ($385,847-$514,462) now have to pay just HK$100 in stamp duty, instead of up to HK$60,000. Property agents said the move could encourage first-time buyers and lift home transactions by 5%-10%. Major banks lowered their best Hong Kong lending rate in December by 25 basis points for the third time last year. The territory's currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar, but local banks make their own rate decisions. ($1 = 7.7751 Hong Kong dollars)
New York Times
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Martin Wong, Medici of the Aerosol Art Set
Martin Wong got in with the graffiti writers in the early 1980s at Pearl Paint, the long-gone Canal Street art supply store, where he had a job in the canvas department. Wong would slip them markers or cans of spray paint or sell them supplies on deep, unsanctioned discounts, which endeared him to artists at crucial moments of their careers. The painter Lee Quiñones recalls Wong writing out $20 invoices for portrait-quality linens priced at $400. Wong soon began buying Quiñones's work and that of like-minded painters like Daze, Sharp and A-One — artists who were moving away from bombing trains with graffiti and developing studio practices. In so doing, he nurtured their development and became a constructive patron: a Cosimo de' Medici of the aerosol set. His collection is highlighted in 'Above Ground,' a small but essential exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. By 1994 Wong had amassed upward of 300 artworks and other media, all of which he donated to the museum that year. As interest in both the modern graffiti movement and its diasporic reverberations has grown, Wong's conviction has proved consequential, his collection functioning as a repository. Pieces from it have been lent to major institutional surveys, like 'Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation' at the MFA Boston and 'Art in the Streets' at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, shows that have deepened scholarship of this previously maligned and misunderstood period. Outsiders had been hot on graffiti at the same time as Wong was, but none had a more ardent or abiding interest. He recognized what was an irreducible form of American expressionism and its importance in the history of New York, even as much of the city was hostile toward it. Wong was 32 when he arrived in New York from San Francisco in 1978 and was drawn immediately to the baroque layers of tags spreading across the city's surfaces. Wong's own art, an urban realism that synthesized documentarian detail and romantic devotion (no artist lavished more attention on bricks), had little technical overlap but shared a sympathetic kinship. His paintings referred to the street, and so invariably referred to graffiti too. He reproduced the Lower East Side's tagged handball courts and crumbling redbrick tenement buildings as oppressive but softened, bathed in a dingy cast that can feel like ecstatic reverie. Wong appears to have never attempted a tag, though there were other affinities. He had a degree in ceramics but was a largely self-taught painter, and he most likely appreciated the graffiti writers' similar industriousness. There was an overlapping interest in language; despite being neither deaf nor mute, Wong learned and practiced American Sign Language. His tidily compressed hand signs punctuate the realism of his scenes, not unlike the alternative writing system of graffiti's letter forms. But perhaps most of all, Wong was sensitive to otherness and underclass. A gay Chinese American, Wong surely recognized in graffiti — an art invented by kids in the city's marginalized communities and forgotten-about peripheries — a version of himself. The breadth of Wong's collection invites many interpretations. 'Above Ground,' curated by Sean Corcoran, is the second exhibition the Museum of the City of New York has carved out of it. 'City as Canvas,' from 2014, was the first and, as testament to the abundance of Wong's collection, the new exhibition includes scarcely any overlap. Whereas 'City as Canvas' aimed to provide a primer on the emergence of graffiti and justify its artfulness, this new iteration takes those ideas as a matter of course. 'Above Ground' opens with a compressed refresher on the 1970s organizing efforts of crews like United Graffiti Artists, who painted live during Twyla Tharp's Joffrey Ballet performance, and Esses Studio, which gave many subway writers their first exposure to canvas. The exhibition then becomes a deeply tuned analysis of the advances of the 1980s (the crucial period of graffiti's embrace by the gallery system), the form's shift from raw expression into commodity, and the stylistic ruptures that flowered. It includes work from familiar names like Futura and Haze (who is also responsible for the exhibition's graphic design and the frieze ringing the gallery's clerestory windows), but also, happily, lesser-known artists like A-One, Delta-2, Ero and Kool Kor. There are several indispensable examples of work by Rammellzee, who created a philosophically dense Gothic Futurism completely his own. Some of the standouts have never been on view before, including Quiñones's 'Breakfast at Baychester' (circa 1980), a startling, near-schematic of a pair of No. 5 trains parked in the Bronx layup that was a favorite painting ground among writers. The piece was unfinished when Wong acquired it, which may account for its haunting beauty, its mechanical guts still being sketched in, both spare and intensely detailed at once. A smaller ink-on-paper study finished three years earlier hints at the vision, an energetically cartoony homage to other writers' tags, but there's a sober realism to the incomplete work. Wong was a completist, interested in not just the juicy, fully realized canvas works but also rarities and the stuttering starts. The show includes 'Kaygee' (circa 1985) a small aerosol on canvas by Dez, a writer who created florid murals and appears to have never produced another canvas. There is also a mesmerizing tromp l'oeil, 'Green Krinkle in Stereo' (1983) by Stan 153, a prolific but underappreciated stylist who was early to understand graffiti's commercial applications. Throughout the show, you get the feeling of Wong's intention, his vision of a comprehensive history of graffiti in New York. There are pieces dated as early as 1971, scraps of cardboard busy with tags, writers' earliest scribbles and school notebooks, when they were still working out their tags and hand styles. 'Martin collected childhoods,' the artist Daze noted. Wong's support eventually evolved into advocacy. With Peter Broda, he opened the Museum of American Graffiti on the top floor of a townhouse on Bond Street in NoHo in 1989, by which time graffiti had mostly dried up in the subway system and the galleries' fast-burning affection had cooled. (The Village Voice ran the headline 'Graffiti R.I.P.' in 1987.) It closed within six months, but the inclusion here of one of the original display vitrines, its wooden frame spangled with thick, loping marks, is a subtle fulfillment of Wong's vision; you can make out the fresh tags squeezed in between the ones from 35 years ago. It's an affectingly living work. Diagnosed with H.I.V., Wong returned to California in 1994, where he died five years later. He could have easily sold off pieces to European collectors to fund the last years of his life, but he was adamant that his collection remain intact and in a public institution, a double gift. Like all major art collections, Wong's represents a bet, less in graffiti's appreciable sales value than in its ability to make visible what was before an invisible segment of society. Wong's bet is paying off, even as institutions that bought his own work remain indifferent to graffiti. That they still haven't caught up tells you how far ahead he could see.
