Hong Kong's primary market weekend sales hit by presales rules

Only 5 units were sold over the weekend.

According to Nomura, post the new presales rules coming into place, the primary market was very quiet this weekend with only two projects available for sale. Developers only sold five units this weekend with HK Ferry’s Green Code and Swire Properties’ Dunbar Place clearing three and two units respectively. Including sales during the week, developers have sold a total of 31 units with 16 units at Dunbar Place and 15 units at Green Code. 

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The average price for the units released at Dunbar Place is HKD20,869psf (SFA), while that of Green Code is HKD9,350psf (SFA). Developers are now readying to release new sales brochures for projects.

There is hope that primary activity may begin to pick up but most of the near term effort appears to be centred around re-launching old projects rather than brand new projects.

While some agents have expected the lack of primary supply to help divert potential buyers back to the secondary market, this has yet to materialise. Over the past weekend, only eight transactions were noted at the ten major housing estates, down 20% w-w.

The Midland 35 housing estates index fell 5% w-w to 52 transactions, representing only 36% of the 2012 weekly average of 143 transactions.