More than 70 per cent of the 50 flats offered for sale at Sun Hung Kai's The Wings development in Tseung Kwan O were sold at the weekend, including a two-storey penthouse that fetched HK$20,000 per square foot - a new sales record for the area.
The good market response put prices at The Wings on a par with luxury developments in West Kowloon and defied fears that a weakening local economy and a steep rise in the number of negative equity cases in the third quarter could put a dampener on demand.
Encouraged by the response, the developer will now put 15 of the remaining 1,028 flats on sale on Wednesday at prices of between HK$13,239 and HK$14,168 per square foot. Each unit has a saleable area of about 893 square foot.
The number of residential mortgages in negative equity - which means the outstanding loan is higher than the value of the property - jumped to 1,653 cases at the end of last month from 48 cases at the end of June. Most were related to mortgages with loan-to-value ratios of 90 per cent or above.
While wealthy mainlanders are seen as a major source of demand for Hong Kong luxury properties, only about 20 per cent of The Wings' buyers were mainlanders, according to the developer. The rest were locals who were looking to switch to bigger flats.
Wong Leung-sing, head of research of Centaline Surveyors, said many people underestimated the strength of local home buyers - especially those from Tseung Kwan O, where flat prices had long been suppressed by oversupply and the proximity to a rubbish dump.