In mid-1990s, many made mistake of thinking prices would keep going up
IN 1995, Mr Zachary Tsai (not his real name) paid nearly $1.3 million for a second house. A general manager with a manufacturing company in his early 40s, he earned a five-figure salary and lived in a semi-detached house he owned in Upper East Coast with his wife and four children.
But pressured by his ‘rich and successful’ friends, he decided to pool his hard-earned savings of $300,000 with his sister to put down a deposit on a three-storey cluster house in Kew Gate, a 31-unit leasehold development in the Upper East Coast area.
Intending to sell it about 10 years later, and confident of being able to repay the mortgage and make a handsome profit, he took out a 90 per cent bank loan.
Any thought that he would lose his job and house prices would drop like a stone never occurred to him. But the unthinkable became an unpleasant reality. Continue reading
Lush Dream Home 