Liaison office acquires 14 flats
Beijing's liaison office in Hong Kong has bought 14 flats in Chai Wan for HK$63.43 million for use as staff quarters.
The apartments - which are 618 to 847 sq ft in size - at Sino Land's Bayview Park in Chai Wan were acquired through Newman Investment in the first two weeks of last month, transaction documents from Land and Company registries show.
The directors of Newman are Shi Jiming, the liaison office's administrative and finance director, and the office's bureau directors, Liang Xiong, Sun Zhongxin and Li Wenze.
The 27-storey Bayview Park is a single-block residential building built in 1999. It comprises 212 flats.
This is not the first time the liaison office has bought flats in the city for its staff. In 2007, it bought 48 flats at Sun Hung Kai Properties' Harbour Green in Tai Kok Tsui for HK$160 million - also through Newman Investment. In early 2003, it bought a residential building, 18 Pokfield Road, in Mid-Levels West for HK$320 million.
The liaison office also owns the residential building at 10-16 Ching Wah Street in North Point that it uses as staff quarters.
Property agents say the office may have been among the few mainland buyers active in the property market in the first quarter.
Private homes bought by mainlanders as a percentage of transaction numbers was 13.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, up from 12.7 per cent in the third quarter, data from Centaline Property Agency show. But in terms of transaction value, the figure fell to 23 per cent from 23.8 per cent.
Wong Leung-sing, senior associate research director at Centaline, says the proportion of mainland buyers in the market fell sharply in the first quarter of this year and will remain low in the second quarter.
'Local end-users dominated the property market in the first quarter,' Wong said. 'They were actively buying flats after the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January, while mainlanders were enjoying their holiday. Also, mainland buyers like to buy luxury flats or flats at new projects. But there has been a dearth of new projects in the first quarter. Owners of luxury flats have also been reluctant to sell.'
