Advertisement
Hong Kong property
Business

Hong Kong property: second-hand prices edge up in April as bargains on new units seduce buyers, analysts say

  • The government’s home price index inched up 0.3 per cent in April, compared with a 1.8 per cent gain in March
  • ‘The second-hand market is facing a lot of competition from the first-hand market, so prices have not had much room to grow’: Colliers researcher

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
An estate agent works the phone in a shop in Tin Hau, Hong Kong, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Jelly Tse
Cheryl Arcibal

Prices of lived-in homes in Hong Kong rose for the second straight month in April, but at a slower rate than in March as aggressive pricing lured buyers to new homes instead, analysts said.

Advertisement
In the second month after the government dropped a series of cooling measures, the home price index inched up 0.3 per cent to 308.7, the highest since December when it stood at 311.3, according to the Rating and Valuation Department (RVD). However, prices are down 12.8 per cent year on year, and the gauge has dropped 0.83 per cent so far this year.
In March, second-hand home prices increased by about 1.8 per cent, RVD data showed.

“The second-hand home market is facing a lot of competition from the first-hand market, so prices have not had much room to grow,” said Kathy Lee, head of research at Colliers Hong Kong. “Developers are pricing their new launches fairly close to the [second-hand] market.”

Since the cooling measures ended, developers have been launching their unsold stock to take advantage of improving market sentiment. As of April, 4,800 new units had been made available to buyers so far this year, a seven-year high for the first four months and more than half of what they put on offer in all of 2023, according to data from Midland Realty.

Advertisement

Among the projects launched in April was the first batch of flats at the Onmantin residential project by Great Eagle Holdings in Ho Man Tin, which was priced from HK$17,759 (US$2,274) to HK$25,866 per square foot. The cheapest unit, measuring 388 sq ft, had a price tag of HK$6.89 million. All 260 available flats found buyers on the first day of the launch on April 27.

loading
Advertisement