Can CK Asset’s flexible payment terms drum up sales for new Sea To Sky project in Lohas Park?
- CK Asset’s initial launch price was the district’s most expensive ever
- Buyers will receive smaller discounts if they opt for the developer’s payment schemes
Saturday was an extraordinarily hot day, but not everyone was staying indoors to avoid the heat. About 50 property agents were scattered around the entrance of the Lohas Park MTR station in Tseung Kwan O, inviting passers-by to visit the area’s latest residential project to go on sale.
“By putting down only 5 per cent of the flat price as an initial deposit, you can become a homeowner,” said Louis Wong, an agent with Hong Kong Property Services (Agency), one of the brokers selling flats at Sea To Sky, the latest offering by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s CK Asset Holdings and Lohas Park’s biggest new residential project in about two years. He was trying to keep the 33-degree heat at bay with a handheld electric fan, standing next to the construction site where three 44 to 55-storey towers rise within a 5 minute’s walk from the station.
The project, a joint venture between CK Asset Holdings and MTR Corporation, which operates Hong Kong’s railway system and is also a major property developer and landlord, comes at a time when Hong Kong home prices have fallen 5.4 per cent since a peak in May last year. Moreover, analysts believe property values will fall 10 per cent to 20 per cent this year amid prolonged economic weakness and rising unemployment.
But CK Asset’s initial launch price was the district’s most expensive ever – on Thursday, it launched 285 flats at an average price of HK$15,823 (US$2,042) per square foot after discounts of up to 22 per cent. It was 5 per cent higher than the adjacent Grand Marini project, built by Wheelock Properties, which was launched in September last year, at an average discounted price of HK$15,075 per square foot.
Two-bedroom flats measuring 471 sq ft at Sea To Sky start at HK$6.4 million, or HK$13,648 per square foot, while four-bedroom flats measuring 1,077 sq ft start at HK$17.7 million, or HK$16,428 per square foot.
01:39
In Hong Kong’s white-hot property market, even ‘haunted apartment’ prices are rising
On Sunday, CK Asset released the price list for a second batch of 285 units, which will cost HK$16,531 per square foot on average, raising the total number of flats primed for sale to 570 units. More than 6,000 people have registered for the project, but the official sales date has not yet been announced.