The stagnant property market received a shot in the arm yesterday when buyers snapped up most of the 800 flats on offer at the Queen's Terrace project in Sheung Wan. Developers and real estate agents said the first batch of 112 specially discounted flats - out of the total 800 on offer - were snapped up within an hour of the opening of the sale. They said the speculators had made a rare return amid the market slump. Real estate agents said at least 80 per cent of the 800 flats on offer were sold at an average price of HK$2,900 per square foot. The sale went on until late last night. About 40 to 50 speculators were able to trade their coupons. The order of the coupon numbers determines who has the right to buy a flat, allowing them to sell it for a profit. Cheung Kong executive director Justin Chiu Kwok-hung said the response reflected a recovery in public confidence in the property market and predicted that the prices of the flats would rise by 0.5 per cent within about six months. The first 112 flats were priced at HK$2,659 per sq ft by developers Cheung Kong (Holdings) and New World Development, which is below the development cost and secondary market prices in the area. The sale was heavily over-subscribed, with 12,783 registered buyers. About 300 flats were sold through internal sales earlier. Mr Chiu said: 'It would be difficult to stamp out all speculation. 'But the problem is not serious - out of the more than 12,000 registrations, less than 10 per cent were speculation cases,' he said. Mr Chiu said that a package of measures launched by the government last month to revive the property market were taking effect. Midland Realty's sales manager for Western and Mid-Levels West, Stephen Lee Shung-kit, said: 'I believe about 80 per cent of the flats were sold. 'I think there were about 40 to 50 speculators who traded for profits of between $500 to $60,000, so I wouldn't call that rampant. 'The market has definitely improved a lot, as can be seen from the heated response, even if you take into account the low selling price,' Mr Lee said. He said that a 'No 9 coupon', for example, had changed hands for $30,000. Ricacorp Properties' district manager for Mid-levels West, Dennis Wong Chun-lam, confirmed that there had been a certain amount of speculation at the project sale site. Queen's Terrace is one of the biggest projects to come on to the market since the government announced the series of incentives to save the battered property market. The measures included lifting the proportion of flats reserved for internal sale and capping the number of flats subscribed by each person. Buyers of Queen's Terrace are able to submit 10 registrations after they have paid a deposit of $60,000. Yesterday's encouraging result mirrored that of Park Island in Ma Wan, which was developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties, where all 2,569 units were sold in one day in August at $2,718 per square foot. Meanwhile, 20 units of the Sorrento phase two project in Kowloon, by Wharf (Holdings), fetched about $4,000 per square foot yesterday, adding to the total of 270 flats that have been sold so far.