Luxury Home on Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak Could Sell for $76M

Hong Kong’s housing market may be in the doldrums but sales of high-end luxury properties are sailing smoothly enough for the city’s largest developer to put on the market a house that should sell for at least HK$145,000 ($18,517) per square foot.

On Friday, Sun Hung Kai Properties will close a tender for house Number 10 in Twelve Peaks, a house in a posh project on the city’s Victoria Peak which analysts predict could sell for up to HK$599 million, or around 23 percent above the list price for the property.

The tender follows revelations last week that an unnamed buyer had snatched up a semi-detached home in the same area for a record HK$180,000 per square foot, as demand for high-end hideaways for the region’s high net worth individuals shows itself to be downturn-resistant for now.

Selling for Above List Price

The expected sale price for Number 10 Twelve Peaks exceeds the price list published by Sun Hung Kai just two months ago, when it expected to sell the 3,744 square foot house for around HK$418.4 million, or HK$111,752 per square foot.

Now, Thomas Lam, head of consulting and advisory services for Knight Frank Hong Kong estimates that by the close of the tender on Friday, the home, which is the smallest of the 12 houses in Twelve Peaks, should sell for between HK$145,000 to HK$160,000 per square foot.

Lam’s expectation for the elite dwelling is based in part on Number One 12 Peaks, a sister property to this latest target, having sold for a record of HK$666 million ($85 million) in a secondary market transaction which was revealed earlier this week.

“There should be some clients interested in the property. The luxurious house market is not as cool as expected,” said Binoche Chan, Chief Operating Officer of List Sotheby’s International Realty HK told Mingtiandi today.

SHK Drip Feeds Luxury Home on the Peak

Number 10, which has south-facing seaviews, is the eighth unit in Twelve Peaks which Sun Hung Kai has put on the market, with the developer opening just a six-hour bidding window for the property from 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm on Friday afternoon.

Sun Hung Kai developed Twelve Peaks on a site which it purchased in 2011 in the last major land sale in the exclusive neighbourhood. After paying HK$1.8 billion, or HK$42,197 per square foot of built area for the site, Sun Hung Kai has been gradually making available units in the development at 12 Mount Kellett Road since 2014.

Each home in the uber-elite project includes a garden, a private swimming pool, and a parking garage that can accommodate at least three cars.

Luxury Housing Market Bucks the Trend

Despite an overall slowdown in Hong Kong property transactions of around 65 percent in third quarter, the impact appears to have been felt less severely in the high-end housing sector.

“The super luxury residential market is different from mass residential,” Knight Frank’s Lam pointed out.

“I believe mass residential property prices will be adjusted in the next 12-18 months, but will not drastically drop like what happened in 1997,” Lam said. “However, the super luxury residential price will be relatively stable in 2019.”

Even as sales of second-hand homes fell by more than 10 percent in Hong Kong during October, a house at 37 Island Road, in Hong Kong’s southern district was being purchased for a record-high price of HK$800 million, or HK$180,000 per square foot, making it the most expensive home ever sold in Asia.

During the same time that new record was being set, a couple of co-founders of mainland e-commerce giant Alibaba Group purchased a pair of luxury apartments in Nan Fung Group’s 8 Deep Water Bay Drive for a total of HK$560 million.