Hong Kong sales of new flats soar during long weekend

Hong Kong home sales in the primary residential market rose sharply during the Ching Ming Festival weekend as developers sped up launches at bigger discounts to lure buyers away from the secondary market.

Buyers snapped up more than 280 new flats over the three days to Monday, 68 per cent higher than the sale of 166 units in the previous long Easter weekend from March 25 to 28, agents said.

“Home seekers have taken advantage of an intensifying price war among developers in the primary market to buy new flats. It will certainly affect the sale of second-hand homes,” said Ricacorp director Willy Liu.

During the Ching Ming holiday, sales of new homes were dominated by Sun Hung Kai Properties’ Ocean Wings in Tseung Kwan O. The developer sold 210 flats, or 90 per cent, of the first batch of 228 units put on sale on Saturday.

But Wheelock Properties sold only 12 units at its One Homantin project in Ho Man Tin, despite offering an extra 8 per cent discount.

The remaining sales were at Capri in Tseung Kwan O and The Spectra and The Twin Regency in Yuen Long.

Wheelock had said on Friday that discounts for the latest batch of 60 units at One Homantin would be raised by 8 per cent to up to 26.5 per cent, from 18.5 per cent when it was launched for sale on March 27.

With a 26.5 per cent discount, the average price of flats in One Homantin has come down to HK$18,793 per square foot, about 2.8 per cent lower than the HK$19,335 per square foot being offered at Mantin Heights and HK$27,000 per square foot at SHKP’s Ultima phase two.

SHKP said it would release 12 four-bedroom flats for sale today as they had generated strong sales on their launch on Saturday.

In Hong Kong’s secondary market during the week of 2-3 April, a total of 12 flats were sold at 10 housing estates monitored by Ricacorp, 37 per cent lower than the previous week’s 19.

“The fall is mainly because most units being offered at bargain prices had been sold. Buyers did not want to pay more for flats still on the market,” Liu said.