THE window displays at the Hong Kong property agency where Mr Stephen Poon works are bursting with cut prices, last-minute reductions and cash incentives.

But buyers are still few and far between, as the stumbling global economy has cut dead the city's five-year booming property market.

Said Mr Poon, an agent of Midland Realty, a large city firm: "Before September, our branch was making HK$2 million (S$385,500) to HK$3 million every month but, now, it's around only HK$50,000."

The global financial crisis is rapidly stunting Hong Kong's office, luxury and residential property markets after they hit a peak in early summer.

Signs outside agents have shown discounts of more than HK$1 million in recent weeks.

Analysts say they expect prices in every sector to drop by an average of 20 to 30 per cent before next July.

With sellers reluctant to lose value and many potential buyers holding off amid stock-market turmoil and tightening lending conditions, many agents have already lost their jobs.

Author Chris Dillon, who recently published a buying guide, said that anyone who believes that property values will appreciate over the next year is "juggling with knives and razor blades".

The malaise has hit the luxury sector particularly hard.

Plunging values saw a house near the prestigious Victoria Peak selling for less than half its asking price of HK$190 million recently, local media reported.

The current downturn ends a property boom that began after the Sars crisis in 2003, when Hong Kong's economy slumped due to worries over the deadly disease.

In the following years, the city's financial sector boomed, attracting wealthy overseas bankers and boosting the income of those already here.

But uncertainty has since ripped across Asia, hitting every market that has boomed in the past five years. Yet, observers say it is only a matter of time before buyers are confident enough to jump back in.

In Hong Kong, with most mortgages requiring deposits of at least 30 per cent, and the government's tight control over supply, the market is regarded as more robust than that in the stricken United States, say analysts.