Chilly weather and a soon-to-be launched big housing project in Yuen Long deterred homebuyers, with the primary residential market virtually grinding to a halt over the three-day Lunar New Year holiday.
'As far as I know, not a single flat has been sold. It may be the worst performance of recent years,' Sammy Po Siu-ming, a director of Midland Realty, said.
Potential homebuyers seemed unimpressed by the developers' festive sweeteners, he said.
Henderson Land Development and Chinachem Group offered lai see of between HK$8,800 and HK$38,000 to lure buyers to some of their projects during the Lunar New Year.
Bad weather put a dampener on people visiting new projects. 'It's not just the cold - it rained for the first two days [of the holiday]. It definitely affected both the primary and secondary residential markets,' he said.
'The market has been really quiet for the past three days. But it will pick up again after the break,' he said.