Flats at Kwok family project in East London start at HK$3.39 million

The Kwok family, controlling shareholders of Sun Hung Kai Properties, is to offer a £500 million (US$651.4 million) joint venture riverside residential project in East London at prices close to those being achieved at apartments in Hong Kong’s Sha Tau Kok frontier town.

The 804-unit Goodluck Hope, a 50-50 joint venture development between Kwok Family Interests (KFI) and Ballymore Group of Ireland, will offer its medium-end residential project for pre-sale in Hong Kong on June 16.

Jenny Steen, sales director at Ballymore, said prices for Goodluck Hope would start at £335,000 for

417 square foot studio flats being offered at £803 per square foot. The most expensive flat – which will offer more than 1,200 square feet of space on a high floor – is on sale at £1.6 million.

Next month, it will offer 100 units in Hong Kong at about £1,000 per square foot.

In Hong Kong, the Marin Point housing project built by Far East Consortium International, was launched at an average price of HK$10,175 (US$1,306) per square foot in April.

“We are offering the project at competitive prices as we want people to be able to afford (them),” Steen said.

Carlo Leung, sales and marketing manager at Sun Hung Kai Real Estate Agency’s property investment department, said Goodluck Hope was KFI’s second investment in a residential project in London.

The project is believed to be KFI’s largest investment in Britain’s residential market since the Brexit referendum on the country’s exit from the European Union in June 2016.

Located on the River Thames at the historic Leamouth Peninsula, the project comprises 804 studio to three-bedroom flats.

Of that number, 651 flats will be offered on the private market and 153 units are earmarked for affordable housing.

Leung said the portion allocated for affordable housing will be offered at a 30 per cent discount to transaction prices achieved in the private market to professionals such as local doctors.

The area, about four minutes by subway to the Canary Wharf district where 120,000 people work, is set to become one of London’s leading arts and cultural destinations.

Mandy Wong, head of international properties at JLL said the British economy had performed well since the Brexit vote and London’s property market was expected to be supported by steady economic growth and a growing workforce.

She expected home prices in London would increase 15 per cent from now to 2021.

“The weaker British pound adds to the attraction of the project for overseas buyers,” Wong said.

Construction begins next year and the development is scheduled to be completed in the third quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.

Steen said the site, bought by private negotiation, still had to be cleared of older properties before construction work could start.

She said roadshows for Goodluck Hope would be conducted in Beijing and Shanghai.

A study by JLL found there are 7,840 units in East London under construction.

“But most of these units have been pre-sold,” Wong said.