Cheung Kong (Holdings) has introduced a 'standby loan' to cover up to a year's mortgage interest costs for Banyan Garden buyers amid the worsening unemployment situation.
Analysts said the scheme would serve as insurance against unemployment to attract hesitant buyers as job losses grew.
On Thursday, the Government said the unemployment rate climbed to 6.1 per cent in the final quarter last year - approaching the record high of 6.4 per cent in January 1999.
The standby loan means Banyan Garden buyers can, within three years, ask Cheung Kong to pay the mortgage interest on their flats. The facility is available twice, each time for a six-month period. The emergency loans will be available at the prime lending rate plus one percentage point.
However, deputy chairman Victor Li Tzar-kuoi dismissed the scheme being seen as an unemployment insurance, saying buyers could use the facility for any reason.
The unemployment problem was irrelevant to the property market, because the unemployed were not knowledge-type workers as required in this knowledge-based economy. The unemployed were more those in the public rental housing segment, he said.
Mr Li said property turnover had gone well in recent months, with home affordability at an historically high level.
