Despite a weak residential sales market in 2012 due to new cooling measures, Hong Kong developers still expect to sell more new homes this year, said Midland Holdings in a Straits Times report.
The realtor estimates that 82,700 residential units were sold in 2012, down from 86,000 in 2011 and the lowest since 2006. Although new home sales grew from 10,500 in 2011 to nearly 13,000 last year, second-hand transactions declined by more than seven percent to about 63,000 units.
To curb housing price rises, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying who vowed to make housing more affordable during his election campaign, released three rounds of cooling measures including a plan to boost land supply.
Notably, the introduction of a 15 percent tax on all foreign buyers resulted in a housing price decline in November, the biggest in 11 months.
“They’ll still be aggressive… They need the funds to replenish land reserve and the government has made it clear they’ll be pushing more land out. We don’t see this changing for a while,” stated Buggle Lau, Chief Analyst at Midland.
Development Secretary Paul Chan revealed that builders had asked for the release of more land to boost sales. So for the full year ended 2013, the government has provided sites that will yield over 20,000 residential units.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
Related Stories:
London’s One The Elephant to launch here
Keppel Land China acquires 5th site in Wuxi