Hong Kong developers push new projects as sales momentum grows

Developers are gearing up to market new home projects as sales momentum gains ground but activity in the secondary sector remains slow, agents said.

In the primary market, more than 300 units were sold over the weekend and the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. That compares with the 115 units sold at the 50 largest estates in the secondary market for the week to September 7, down 20 per cent from a week earlier, sales figures tracked by Ricacorp Properties showed.

There were 2,500 units that had secured pre-sale consent and were available for sale, with the 1,648-flat Hemera, the Phase IIIA of Lohas Park in Tseung Kwan O developed by Cheung Kong (Holdings), the biggest upcoming project, agents said.

"The strong sales have boosted developers' confidence about the prospects of the market and will encourage them to speed up [new project] launches," said Patrick Chow, the head of research at Ricacorp.

At the weekend, buyers snapped up the second batch of 206 units at Sun Hung Kai Properties' Wings IIIA in Tseung Kwan O and 50 units at Hang Lung Properties' luxury residential project, the HarbourSide, at Kowloon Station.

SHKP immediately released the third batch of 169 units after it pulled in HK$3.5 billion from the sale of 400 units in the first two phases.

Deputy managing director Victor Lui Ting said the third batch included units with a garden or top-floor flats with a rooftop at HK$14,000 to HK$18,000 per square foot.