Young Hongkongers snap up cheap flats in Northern Metropolis as relaxed mortgage, quarantine rules offset rising interest rates

Name: Farming families ponder future under Hong Kong government’s Northern Metropolis plans
Uploaded: 2022-09-27T11:42:01.000Z
Duration: 6 min 9 s
Description: Farming families ponder future under Hong Kong government’s Northern Metropolis plans

With an average price of HK$14,623 per sq ft, One Innovale-Bellevue in Fanling is more affordable than Kowloon and Hong Kong Island

Many of the prospective buyers on Tuesday were in their 20s and early 30s, according to Sammy Po Siu-ming of Midland Realty

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Henderson Land Development’s One Innovale Bellevue in Fanling. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Lam Ka-sing

Published: 7:42pm, 27 Sep 2022Updated: 10:00pm, 27 Sep 2022

The scrapping of hotel quarantine requirements and a relaxation of mortgage rules boosted sales of affordable new homes in Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis area, said analysts, as young buyers snapped up flats priced from HK$3.07 million (US$391,085) each.

Henderson Land Development’s One Innovale-Bellevue in Fanling had sold 231, or 95 per cent, of 243 flats on offer as of 8.39pm on Tuesday, according to a spokesman for the developer. Another four flats were sold by tender.

With an average price per square foot of HK$14,623, it is one of the more pricey developments in the immediate area, just 0.3 per cent shy of the secondary market price of the Sheung Shui Centre, the most expensive. However, it remains much more affordable than Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

Many of the prospective buyers on Tuesday were in their 20s and early 30s, according to Sammy Po Siu-ming, CEO of Midland Realty’s residential division for Hong Kong and Macau.

“Benefiting from the development potential of the Northern Metropolis area, the launch continues to be sought after by the market, among which young people born in the 1990s and 2000s are the main prospective buyers,” he said.

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Farming families ponder future under Hong Kong government’s Northern Metropolis plans

Hong Kong’s former Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor laid down the blueprint for the Northern Metropolis in her 2021 policy address. The scheme involves the development of an IT hub in the northern New Territories near the border with mainland China, construction of up to 186,000 homes and a new cross-border railway linking the city to the Qianhai economic zone in Shenzhen.