CK Asset’s sale of Seaside Sonata sputters in the final pre-holiday weekend as Hong Kong’s home market tries to find its footing

CK Asset Holdings, one of the city’s biggest developers, sold 30 flats out of 123 units on offer at its Seaside Sonata project in Cheung Sha Wan as of 9pm

The lacklustre reception at Seaside Sonata drew a stark contrast with the two previous sell-out weekends

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Potential buyers during the October 2019 sale of an earlier batch of flats at CK Asset’s Seaside Sonata project in Cheung Sha Wan. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 5:57pm, 18 Jan 2020Updated: 11:21pm, 18 Jan 2020

Hong Kong’s home sales sputtered in the final weekend before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, in a sign that the city’s struggling property market is still trying to find its footing.

CK Asset Holdings, one of the city’s biggest developers, sold 30 flats out of 123 units on offer at its Seaside Sonata project in Cheung Sha Wan as of 9pm, according to Midland Realty, one of the sales agents for the apartment complex.

“Buyers may be more cautious” ahead of a large pipeline of new property scheduled for launch later this year, said Midland’s residential department chief executive Sammy Po.

The lacklustre reception at Seaside Sonata drew a stark contrast with the two previous sell-out weekends, when Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) sold 92 per cent of flats offered at its Wetland Seasons Park project in Tin Shui Wai, helped by generous discounts that priced the average unit at HK$6 million (US$772,000), a third cheaper than Seaside Sonata’s median price.

CK Asset's Seaside Sonata development on Hai Tan Street in Cheung Sha Wan on July 2019. Photo: Tory Ho

That is a foreboding sign for the world’s most expensive residential property market, which is betting on this week’s Phase One detente in the US-China trade war to soothe Hong Kong’s jittery homebuyers.

Investors were in the mood to spend in the first two weekends of January, splurging a combined HK$4.5 billion (US$579 million) on 690 apartment units at Wetland Seasons Park, sending the stock price of the developer SHKP rising, and pushing the Hang Seng Index to a seven-year high.