HK property sales down by a third last year
Property sales in Hong Kong fell by 33 per cent to just 108,504 deals last year as concerns over the economy and government moves to curb speculation soured buyer sentiment, property agents said.
Data compiled by Midland Realty showed that this number of transactions, including homes, offices and car parking spaces, was down by a third from 162,739 in 2010, and also below the total of 113,298 deals done in 2008, when the global financial crisis broke out.
The agency expects that once final accounting is done, the total transaction value for 2011 will show a year-on-year 15 per cent decline to HK$58.64 billion.
The Land Registry has not yet released official figures.
'The sharp fall in property transactions was largely because sentiment in the secondary residential market was severely hit by the introduction of a special stamp duty and restricted bank lending,' said Buggle Lau Ka-fai, chief analyst at Midland Realty.
The deals included an estimated 75,024 second-hand homes that changed hands in 2011, which would be down 39 per cent on last year.
Midland predicted that final 2011 data on sales in the primary market could show a 16 per cent decline to 10,807, valued at HK$13.05 billion.
About 22,673 commercial properties were sold last year, it said, at a combined value of HK$14.45 billion.
Lau forecast that transaction volume in the secondary market for January would be about 3,000, compared with about 2,848 transactions last month.
Developer Sino Land said it sold more than 90 per cent of the 100 units on offer at The Coronation in West Kowloon since their release on Friday. The price on the first batch of 50 units was set at HK$13,733 per square foot and it said it would generate about HK$1.1 billion in revenue if all 100 units were sold.
Given the strong response, the developer said it would today release another 206 apartments at an average of HK$14,038 per square foot, up 2.2 per cent from the launch price.
The Coronation is jointly developed by Chinese Estates Holdings, Nan Fung and K Wah International.
