Hong Kong's home prices have reached the highest level in 15 months in October as more buyers entered the property market, while rents hit a pause.

Figures released by the Rating and Valuation Department on Wednesday showed that the city's official home price index rose for the fifth consecutive month – to 294.3 – in October.

That was 0.4 percent higher compared to the 293.1 registered a month earlier, but much lower compared to the preceding monthly growth of 1.5 percent.

On a yearly basis, home prices rose by 1.1 percent last month.

The latest figure, which was the highest since July of last year, also pushed the gauge up by 1.8 percent between January to October this year.

Commenting on the figures, Eddie Kwok, executive director of valuation and advisory services at CBRE Hong Kong, noted that the rise came as the city's stock market rallied over the past year creating a "wealth effect", with more buyers "actively" snapping up properties.

"Since April this year, there have been over 1,600 new home sales each month," he said.

"This sends an important message to the market: the peak of unsold units has passed, and the number of unsold units would gradually decrease," he added.

Kwok said he expects the city's residential property prices to increase by about three percent in 2025, and go up by another three to five percent in 2026.

Separately, Hong Kong's rental market finally showed signs of cooling, as the official rental gauge – which tracks average rental prices – remained at 200.2 for the period, unchanged from September.

That pauses 10 straight months of rental increase, though prices still rose 3.9 percent from a year ago in October.

Kwok said this was partially due to some landlords choosing to sell properties instead of putting them up for rent.

He said rents would continue to increase, due to government measures to attract more high-quality talent.