An unidentified buyer paid HK$12,263 (US$1,570) per square meter for a luxury apartment in Hong Kong’s exclusive Peak neighborhood, making it Asia’s most expensive apartment by area, Knight Frank LLP said yesterday.
The buyer on Monday paid more than HK$1.16 billion for two adjacent apartments at No. 8 Mount Nicholson, Wheelock Properties Ltd (會德豐地產) said.
The record was set by the smaller of the two, which sold for HK$560 million.
The project is a joint venture with Nan Fung Development (南豐).
Hong Kong’s property market is running red hot.
Soaring house prices have put Hong Kong in bubble risk territory as local and foreign investors pile in, making a “mild correction” likely, according to the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index.
“For many high net-worth individuals, Mount Nicholson is a way to invest,” Knight Frank head of valuation and consultancy Thomas Lam (林浩文) said.
Such purchases also highlight the extreme differences between rich and poor in Hong Kong, which is the world’s least affordable place in which to buy a house.
It would take 2,745 years of the entire median annual income of HK$204,000 to buy the record property on the Peak.
“The wealth gap has increased a lot,” JPMorgan Chase & Co head of research for Hong Kong property and conglomerates Cusson Leung (梁伯韜) said. “The people on the street and the people on the Peak are separated by 2,745 years.”
On Wednesday last week, a six-member consortium including Sino Land Co (信和置業) and K Wah International Holdings Ltd (嘉華國際集團) paid HK$17.3 billion for a residential plot in Kowloon, a record for government land.
At Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd’s (新鴻基地產) Victoria Harbour development in North Point, prospective bidders are required to pay a HK$7 million deposit for the right to view the apartments.
“The tendering process and deposit arrangement are not uncommon for high-niche residential properties, considering that the units are rare and of high quality,” the company said in an e-mail.
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