'Removal of spicy measures boosts property sector'

The chairman of Estate Agents Authority (EAA) on Sunday said the scrapping of the property cooling measures in last month's Budget had revitalised the local real estate sector. Speaking on a TVB programme, Simon Siu said the removal of the so-called "spicy measures" had boosted the transaction volume, bringing in more business for local estate agents. However, Siu anticipated that the authority would likely receive more complaints as transaction volume increased. "We have received 10 to 20 percent fewer complaints over the past two or three years. As for the number of complaints, we got around a few hundred every year. It is not too many, or too few. We believe that the number of complaints may rise proportionally with the increasing transaction volume," he explained. Official figures earlier released by the Land Registry had shown a decline in home sales over the past three years, with last year reaching the lowest level since 1991.