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Buyers keen on Wang On’s Finnie project in Quarry Bay, with pricing one third lower than 2021

Homebuyers snapped up the flats offered by Wang On Properties at a residential project in Hong Kong’s Eastern district on Saturday, after the developer priced units one third lower than the market rate three years ago.

As of 6pm Saturday, 47 of the 60 units on sale at Finnie, a single block in Quarry Bay, were sold, with buyers attracted by their potential investment returns, according to agents.

“Because of the attractive prices and good location, the homes drew a buying spree from long-term investors convinced of handsome returns generated by rental income,” said Sammy Po Siu-ming, chief executive of Midland Realty’s residential division for Hong Kong and Macau. “Most buyers were from Hong Kong Island, and we also saw strong buying interest from young residents.”

The prices of the units ranged from HK$4.29 million (US$550,279) to HK$8.54 million, or HK$17,502 to HK$23,470 per square foot.

Hong Kong developer Wang On priced the Finnie residential project in Quarry Bay a third lower compared with three years ago. Photo: Handout

Finnie is located next to Quarry Bay MTR station, and is priced about 30 per cent lower than the initial launch of Henderson Land’s The Holborn in 2021, which was priced at HK$28,888 per sq ft on average.

Even though there has been no new supply of flats in the Taikoo Place area for many years, the prices were about 20 per cent lower than unsold units in the same neighbourhood, Jimmy Lee, director of Midland, said earlier this month.

Po predicted that the Finnie flats could generate annualised investment returns of 5 per cent.

Analysts expect prospective Hong Kong homebuyers to begin chasing new flats soon amid high expectations of an interest-rate cut by the US Federal Reserve next month.

Louis Chan Wing-kit, CEO of the residential division of Centaline, said in mid-August that as developers were starting to speed up the pace of sales, the glut of new supply could lead to a new round of discounts.

The market for lived-in homes has already taken off, seeing dozens of transactions of first-hand units every day, he added.

Hong Kong’s property market has been weighed down by high interest rates, which remain at a 23-year high. The government’s efforts to revive home sales through the removal of decade-old curbs in February have fallen flat after a brief spurt.
People queue to buy units at the Finnie project in Quarry Bay. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Prices on the secondary market dropped by 1.2 per cent month on month in June, the lowest since October 2016. That brought the decline of second-hand homes to 3.1 per cent in the first six months of the year.

Wang On acquired the Quarry Bay project, located at 9 Finnie Street, for HK$412 million last year from Eric Chu, a Hong Kong businessman whose Vietnamese wife, Truong My Lan, became embroiled in a high-profile scandal in the Southeast Asian nation. Chu reportedly paid HK$678 million for the asset in 2018.

Separately, Wang On has suffered losses from its investments in the bond market.


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