Hong Kong buyers give nano flats a wide berth as buyers armed with larger mortgage amounts eye bigger homes
- Only 92 small flats, or those under 280 sq ft in size, were transacted on the secondary market in March, 24 per cent lower than February
- Average price fell 0.7 per cent month on month to HK$4.03 million in March
Only 92 small flats, under 280 square feet, were transacted on the secondary market between March 1 and 28, some 24 per cent lower than February, according to Ricacorp Properties. The average price eased 0.7 per cent to HK$4.03 million, bringing the decline from its May 2021 peak to 4.8 per cent.
The decline in sales and prices of tiny flats mirrors the overall downturn the local property market is experiencing because of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and the government’s recent higher mortgage amounts for homebuyers, said Joseph Tsang, chairman of JLL Hong Kong.
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“The reason people were interested [earlier] in nano flats was that they did not have sufficient funds but still wanted to buy their own homes, but now the [the new mortgage rules] allow buyers to buy larger flats with larger loans,” he said.
