Lai Sun Wins Kwun Tong Site for HK$883M and More Hong Kong Real Estate Headlines

Kowloon leads Mingtiandi’s roundup of top Hong Kong real estate headlines this week with a listed developer picking up a site Kowloon East’s Ngau Tau Kok area through a URA tender. Also on the peninsula, a Michelin star bearing dim sum restaurant is paying rent to a new landlord after one of the city’s trading barons paid HK$61 million to make the Cantonese culinary art a part of his investment portfolio.

Besides pork buns, Kowloon now seems to offer shoppers a choice of second-hand electronic devices or aging residential buildings along Sham Shui Po’s Apliu Street.

Keep reading for these stories and more from the world’s most expensive real estate market.

Lai Sun Wins URA Tender for Kwun Tong Site with HK$883M Bid

Lai Sun Development bested 17 competitors to win a 30 April URA tender for a Kowloon East site at a price of HK$883 million. The developer controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Peter Lam Kin-ngok shouldered aside rival bids for the redevelopment project in the Kwun Tong area from Sun Hung Kai, Wheelock, Sino Land and Far East Consortium among other players, and expects to invest another HK$1.4 billion in the residential development, according to a report in the Hong Kong Economic Times.

Lai Sun’s new site at 12 to 30 Hang On Street in Kowloon East can be developed into 64,000 square feet (6,663 square metres) of residential space, with the developer expected to complete the project by 2024. As a condition of the tender, the builder must also develop another 7,976 square feet of space as an elder care home.

Lai Sun, which was founded by Lam’s father, the late tycoon Lim Por-yen, paid the equivalent of HK$13,300 per square foot for the project, exceeding by more than 60 percent the rate that Wheelock paid in 2016 to buy the nearby Cha Two Ling redevelopment site. Read more>>

Metal Trading Tycoon Buys Michelin-Star Dim Sum Shop for HK$61M

Veteran property investor Yeung Fun Bun has paid HK$61 million to purchase a two storey shop in Kowloon’s Sham Shui Po area which houses a branch of Hong Kong’s famed Tim Ho Wan dim sum restaurant, the Hong Kong Economic Times reported on 2 May.

The chairman of local metal trading firm Kam Wah Holdings Limited paid the equivalent of HK$11,000 per square foot to pick up two separate titles for the space at 9 to 12 Fuk Wing Street, combining a 2,850 square foot street level shop with its 2,650 square foot second floor. Based on the HK$227,000 monthly rent paid by the current tenant, Michelin-star winner Tim Ho Wan, which now has 47 branches in seven countries, Yeung will receive an estimated 4.5 percent yield on his investment, with no word regarding whether the lease allows the local tycoon preferential access to siu mai or har gow. Read more>>

Mystery Investor Shoots for Takeover of Sham Shui Po Site

Private company Ascend Speed Limited has invested HK$73.3 million acquiring 11 units in an aging residential building at 91 to 95 Apliu Street in Kowloon’s Sham Shui Po area, according to a 29 April report in the Hong Kong Economic Times, as acquisitions of old buildings grows in popularity among developers competing for sites in Hong Kong.

While the company’s ownership remains unclear, they seem focused on the gentrifying district in northwestern Kowloon, with Land Registry records said to show the company has paid another HK$57.5 million for the en bloc purchase of 89 Apliu Street, bringing its investment in residential property on the street to HK$1.3 billion.

The company paid as much as HK$16,000 per square foot of built area for its acquisitions, nearly as much as current selling prices at Heya Crystal, a newly finished residential project nearby. Should the company consolidate its ownership of the pair of five-storey and six-storey buildings currently occupying the site, it would be able to developer more than 30,000 square feet of commercial or residential assets on the site. Read more>>

Japan’s Aeon Credit Rents Central Shop at Half-Price

Japan’s Aeon Credit Service just rented a shopfront in the 20-storey Century Square building in Central for HK$350 per square foot per month, a rate nearly half of what the previous tenant, jewelry retail Pandora had been paying, the Hong Kong Economic Times reported on 26 April.

The credit card provider’s new space on D’Aguilar Street near the Lan Kwai Fong clubbing destination covers 1,000 square foot and with Hong Kong’s luxury retail sectors continuing to struggle, was leased at HK$350,000 per month, according to the media account. Aeon’s new lease is some 46 percent less than the HK$650,000 per month deal with the Danish jeweller had signed up for in 2015. Read more>>

Unit in Wan Chai’s CNT Tower Sold for HK$21M

An unidentified buyer just paid HK$20.75 million to acquire a 1,504 square foot unit in the CNT Tower, a grade B commercial building on Hennessy Road, Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district, the Hong Kong Economic Times reported on 1 May.

The buyer paid the equivalent HK$13,800 per square foot for the lower floor space in the office building at the back of the Charterhouse Hotel, a slight drop compared to the previous transaction in the project, when a 940 square foot unit was sold for HK$14,234 per square foot in mid-March. Read more>>

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