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Greater Bay Area: Hongkongers seen boosting demand for homes as banks dangle cheaper loans, easier cross-border payment facility
- ICBC (Asia)’s mortgage financing at 3.25 per cent is said to be the cheapest, along with easier cross-border payment facility
- Centaline expects Greater Bay Area home transactions involving Hongkongers to increase by 25 per cent this year
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Buyers from Hong Kong are expected to recharge demand for homes in the Greater Bay Area as cheaper loans and seamless cross-border remittances added to the appeal of working and living in the region.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Asia), the local unit of China’s biggest lender by assets, said demand from local buyers for mortgage financing of Bay area homes surged last quarter as the economies in mainland and Hong Kong showed signs of recovery following forecasts for annual growth in 2021.
“The number of [mortgage] applications in the first quarter of 2021 reached 40 per cent of the entire year of last year,” Flora Leung, head of retail banking and wealth management department, said at a briefing on Tuesday. “A large number of Hong Kong people work and live in cities in the region, which has increased the demand for loans for property purchases in recent years.”
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The bank saw a tenfold increase in such applications in 2020 over 2019, Leung added. Zhuhai and Zhongshan were the favourite picks of Hongkongers, who accounted for 85 per cent of the applications.
Home transactions in the Greater Bay Area involving Hongkongers sank 46 per cent to 161,000 in 2020 due to the stringent border restrictions amid the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Centaline Property Agency. That should rebound by about 25 per cent to more than 200,000 this year as vaccination programmes expand and travel curbs eased.
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