Hong Kong home buyers shun developers’ sales overtures as economic slump deters families from capital commitments

Hong Kong’s weekend home sales flopped for the fourth time in six weeks, in another sign that the residential property industry’s worst slump in a decade has some ways to go before recovering.

CK Asset Holdings sold 11 of the 170 Seaside Sonata flats on offer in Sham Shui Po at 7pm, as buyers shrugged aside the 29 per cent average discount offered by one of Hong Kong’s biggest developers. Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP), the city’s biggest builder by market value, sold 12 of 20 Mount Regency II apartments in Tuen Mun, and found buyers for 12 out of 14 units at St Martin in Tai Po.

The sales flop underscores how rising unemployment amid Hong Kong’s first recession in a decade is deterring households from making large financial commitments, adding weight to a property slump that is struggling to find a bottom. Last weekend, one of mainland China’s biggest developers sold a mere 7 per cent of its Emerald Bay flats in Tuen Mun, its maiden Hong Kong project.

“As the unemployment rate is picking up, purchasing sentiment in the mass residential market has been further eroded,” said Martin Wong, associate director of research and consultancy of Greater China at Knight Frank.

The cold shoulder by homebuyers come even as Hong Kong’s coronavirus outbreak appears to be under control, with new confirmed cases rising by single digits every day. The infectious disease has sickened 1,035 people and claimed four lives in Hong Kong at last count.

The latest batch of Seaside Sonata on offer, measuring between 484 square feet and 736 sq ft (68 square metres), were priced from HK$11.7 million to HK$18.4 million (US$2.37 million), or an average of HK$24,984 per sq ft.