Apartments’ sale set to test Hong Kong market
Hong Kong developers are poised to find out just how much the city’s booming stock market has pushed up demand for luxury housing.
Swire Properties is seeking buyers for six apartments at its Frank Gehrydesigned building priced as high as HK$520 million ($91.8 million).
Wheelock & Co and Nan Fung Group pulled together an international team of architects to create its “ultra-luxury” house and apartment project in the city’s prestigious The Peak neighbourhood, which may go on sale in the third quarter.
CK Hutchison Holdings and Sun Hung Kai Properties are also preparing to sell high-end residences.
The projects are being offered on the back of a stock boom that’s driven Hong Kong’s benchmark index to an almost eight-year high.
How they fare may signal whether a recovery in the luxury market, which saw prices rebound to a twoyear high in the first quarter, has further to go.
“We can see that the stock market is going to continue to be quite strong, and that tends to be positive for the luxury property market,” said Patrick Wong, an analyst at BNP Paribas.
“Both the A-share and Hong Kong markets are doing well, so that combined will have a wealth effect.”
A-shares are those traded on the mainland.
History suggests rising stock prices and demand for luxury property go hand in hand — prices of larger units jumped by almost a third from the beginning of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008, according to government data, a period during which the Hang Seng Index touched an all-time high.
CK Hutchison, controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing, may start selling two high-end developments in the Kowloon district as soon as this month, says executive director Justin Chiu. They follow sellouts at two cheaper residences this year that targeted first-time homebuyers and middle-class families.
Sun Hung Kai is one of the biggest sellers of luxury properties so far this year, including eight houses on the south side of Hong Kong Island that went for more than HK$100 million each in April. Its Ultima residence, which will have 256 homes, may go on sale this month.