Hong Kong’s homebuyers shun property sales for the fourth weekend in a row as they await better deals amid a glut of options

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Wheelock Properties sold 13 flats, or 13 per cent of the 101 units on offer at its Grand Marini in Lohas Park as of 6:45pm, sales agents said

CK Asset is likely to launch its Sea to Sky apartments in the same neighbourhood next month. The developer will be joined by several others, all rushing to revive their sales after suspending them for two months

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People lining up for Wheelock's Properties’ Grand Marini project at its show room on 16 May 2020. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Lam Ka-sing

Published: 9:13pm, 16 May 2020Updated: 9:13pm, 16 May 2020

Hong Kong’s property sales flopped for the fourth straight weekend, as homebuyers turned their backs on unsold projects to wait for better discounts, amid a real estate slump in the city’s worst economic contraction in decades.

Wheelock Properties sold 13 flats, or 13 per cent of the 101 units on offer at its Grand Marini project in Lohas Park as of 6:45pm, sales agents said. The same project was 90 per cent sold two months earlier, with 18 potential buyers vying for every available unit then.

“These are leftover stock,” said Ricacorp Properties’ associate director Alvin Leung, adding that prices of the latest phase had been gradually raised after the successes of the previous sales. “Buyers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, in anticipation of CK Asset’s upcoming project” that is expected to launch in the same neighbourhood in June, he said.

The reversal of fortune for Wheelock’s Grand Marini over two months underscores how Hong Kong’s residential property is becoming a buyers’ market, as investors hold out for the best deals amid a glut of choices. The city’s monthly average home price has fallen by 7.6 per cent from its peak in June 2019, tracking the economic contraction that saw Hong Kong’s first-quarter growth shrinking by 8.9 per cent compared with last year, according to the Centa-City Leading Index.

Average home rent had also fallen, as rising unemployment weighed on demand in the residential property market. Average rent fell for nine consecutive months, or by a cumulative 12.1 per cent, to HK$33.3 per square foot in April, according to Centaline Property Agency, which tracks prices in 107 private housing estates across Hong Kong.

Transactions in the world’s most expensive home market slowed to a trickle. The total amount of stamp duty collected, which reflects investment demand in the property market, fell 17.7 per cent in April to a record low of a mere HK$560 million, the sixth consecutive month of declines, according to the Inland Revenue Department.