Two Hong Kong residential sites were snapped up by mainland developers paying top dollar, with one of the purchases setting a record for the highest per-square-foot price in the New Territories.
Chan Cheuk-yin, a vice-chairman of Guangdong-based Agile Property, bought a site in Pik Sha Road, Sai Kung, for HK$700 million.
With a maximum gross floor area of 32,787 square feet, the site was sold at HK$21,350 per buildable square foot, which breaks the existing record of HK$14,700 per square foot set by HKR International for a Sai Kung site in October last year.
China Overseas Land & Investment, one of the mainland's largest developers, won a 32,830 sq ft site on Ap Lei Chau with a price of nearly HK$2.54 billion, or HK$11,044 per buildable square foot. The site attracted 12 bidders and its maximum gross floor area is 229,811 sq ft.
This exceeded market estimates of about HK$1.15 billion to HK$2.2 billion, or HK$5,000 to HK$9,573 per square foot.
'The [Sai Kung] site will be used to build houses. It is a private project as the site was bought by our vice-chairman, Mr Chan, and not by the company,' said Agile's deputy general manager and company secretary Peggie Wai.
The HK$700 million price tag was as much as 113 per cent higher than surveyors' forecasts of between HK$328 million and HK$590 million, or HK$10,000 to HK$18,000 per square foot.