When the International Monetary Fund finally takes notice, it must be old news. On Tuesday the IMF issued its annual report on Hong Kong, saying that it shared the government’s “concerns that a credit-asset price cycle could take hold, leading to a sharp run-up in prices for certain real and financial assets”.

The release of the IMF report came just three weeks after Henderson Land, a large Hong Kong developer, announced it had sold a penthouse on the 68th floor of a 40-storey building for HK$71,280 ($9,200) per square foot – a marketing gimmick made possible by omitting dozens of floor numbers. The October 14 sale coincided with remarks by the territory’s chief executive warning of an incipient “property bubble”.