New land sale rule may help to cool Hong Kong’s overheated property market
The government will publish all offers tendered for a plot rather than just winning figure – a move that could curb overly aggressive bidding
Hong Kong’s land sales are set to become more transparent with the government undertaking to reveal all bids by developers to address long running concerns about inflated prices and their impact on the red hot property market.
Development Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun said on Thursday that, starting from this quarter, the government would start publishing the tender amounts from all bidders, without identifying them, four weeks after the winning bid for a plot of land was announced.
On another significant note he also confirmed that the government would launch a new scheme this year requiring private developers to build nursing homes for the elderly on some sites to be sold through government tender, as part of efforts to tackle an ageing population in a space-starved city.
Under the current system, only the winning property developer’s identity and bid price are disclosed, along with a list of other unsuccessful bidders – minus the prices they offered.
“We think it may be a good time to increase transparency of the market,” Wong said. “In the past, there were quite some sites where the winning bid far exceeded the upper estimate of the market. In those situations people wondered whether the winning bid was representative of the overall bids received, or whether it was an outlier, with the second or third highest bid falling far behind.”