Hong Kong's weekend primary home sales crash 95%

Initial effects of the new property law.

According to Maybank Kim Eng, only 2 primary residential property projects are available for sale over the weekend, immediately after the new First-Hand Sales ordinance became effective last Monday.

Maybank noted that twenty-Nine units were transacted over the last week, with Dunbar Place (Swire Properties (1972) in Ho Man Tin) and Green Code (HK Ferry (50) in Fanling) taking up 16 and 13 sales, respectively.

"For Sat/Sun sales, the total number of unit was 5. The number represents a 95% WoW drop and reverse the 4-week rising trend in number of transactions, but is inline with market’s expectation. Separately, only 12 secondary transactions were recorded from top 10 residential estates, up 20% WoW but only supported by 3 New Territories projects in Tsuen Wan, Shatin and Tin Shui Wai, respectively," says Maybank.

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Implication: The slow transaction in urban secondary estates suggested that potential buyers are still waiting for steeper price correction.

Meanwhile, we believe that the number of primary projects available for sale will increase towards the end of May, as developers have already digested the impact of the new Ordinance, and the preparation work for marketing material will be completed over the next few weeks.

We expect that remaining units of existing projects on sale will continue to dominate primary sales towards month-end, including SHKP (16)’s The Riva, Residence 88, Henderson Land (HL, 12)’s High Place and High Point, HL/New World Dev (17) JV’s The Reach and Double Cove, and Sino Land (83) various phases in Providence Bay, and The Avery (Kowloon City) which could be re-marketed on Friday at the soonest.