Hong Kong property-market insiders see signs of mainland China residents returning to the housing market after the reopening of the border, although a full recovery is expected to take months amid high interest rates.
Mainlanders have started to buy homes in Hong Kong again, with interest concentrated in luxury properties so far, Victor Tin, executive director at Sino Land, told the Post.
“Luxury homes are seeing an earlier kick-off,” Tin said. “Later when the border reopening is further relaxed, there may be even more mainland buyers coming, boosting other kinds of properties.”
For example, mainlanders bought three of the six flats sold at St George’s Mansions in Ho Man Tin, a luxury project jointly developed by Sino and CLP Group, in the first 10 days of this year, Tin said.
The three flats sold for around HK$300 million (US$38.41 million).
In west Kowloon, a mainland buyer forked out HK$166 million for eight flats at Grand Victoria on January 12, Tin said. Sino and three other companies developed the project.
In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, buyers with mainland China backgrounds accounted for 8.4 per cent of total home sales in Hong Kong, according to Midland Realty. Buying by mainland Chinese peaked in 2011 at 11 per cent of all homes, or 30.2 per cent of new homes.
Annual transactions by buyers who were not Hong Kong permanent residents or companies fell by about 76 per cent during the pandemic, according to Inland Revenue Department statistics cited by Midland Realty.
Source: South China Morning Post
