Second-hand home sales are in a rebound in Hong Kong after property owners lured buyers using big discounts, a report from SCMP.com revealed.
After news of plummeting Hong Kong and mainland real estate markets and an imminent rise in rates, a lot of home owners decided to sell their properties instead of holding on to them, property agents said.
Recent numbers show that a week ago, about 85 units were sold at 50 estates which were monitored by Ricacorp Properties. This was a significant increase of 1 percent from the previous week. David Chan, director at Ricacorp said that this is the highest from August 2015.
Midland Realty, another prominent real estate company in Hong Kong, also noticed an increase in home sales in their secondary home market. The company mentioned 58 deals at 35 housing estates which was an increase of 2 percent from a week later.
Buggle Lau Ka-fai, chief analyst said, "We have seen a further lift in sales of second-hand homes."
A huge part of secondary home deals were from the New Territories with an increase of 40 percent week after week. Around 38 deals were closed in the area from January 11 to 17 which was only 27 transactions a week before. Midland Realty monitors the area closely.
From the 38 deals, 47 percent of these were properties that were under HK$4 million.
"The lump sum amounts for more units are declining as home prices are falling," Lau said.
Jeffrey Ng, executive director of Hong Kong Property Services (Agency), also pointed out that the reason behind this significant increase was more property owners willing to compromise. He said on an interview, "They fear buying confidence could be damaged by the United States Federal Reserve raise interest rate rise and turbulence in stock markets." Ng said, the room for negotiation the speedier the transactions would be.
On the other hand, the primary residential market also showed promising numbers. Agents estimated that there were at least 16 units that were sold over the weekend.