$82M Home on Hong Kong’s Peak Sets Record for Asia’s Priciest Apartment

A luxury home on Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak this month sold for HK$639.7 million ($82.1 million) and set a new record for Asia’s priciest apartment, according to public records posted by the developer, shouldering aside the previous high-water mark set in February of this year.

Unit D on the 16th floor in phase three at Mount Nicholson was one of a pair sold at the uber-luxury project developed by Wheelock Properties and Nan Fung Development on a single day. The 4,544 square foot (422 square metre) home sold for the equivalent of HK$140,800 per square foot, making it the most expensive ever on the Asian continent by price per unit of area.

“Mount Nicholson is a benchmark for the Hong Kong luxury market, especially for The Peak and Southern District,” said Cyrus Fong, senior director for valuation and advisory at Knight Frank. “The recent transactions show greater confidence in the city’s luxury residential sector.”

Both of the luxury units at Mount Nicholson were reportedly purchased by the same group of undisclosed buyers, with the transactions coming as prices of high-end homes in the city are forecast to grow by 3 percent in the second half of the year, driven by mainland billionaires and wealthy locals who have resumed homebuying activities, according to Colliers International.

Sale Marks High-End Boom

The 16th-floor apartments sold on The Peak this month are located in adjacent blocks C and D of the project, yielding a saleable area of 4,186 and 4,544 square feet, respectively.

Located at one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious addresses on 8 Mount Nicholson Road, each unit, designed by renowned firms such as Robert Stern and Yabu Pushelberg, features a dressing room and four ensuite bedrooms. Residents at the project also have access to a clubhouse with an indoor pool and a gym, reported Tatler Hong Kong.

The record-breaking block D unit, which is part of the third phase of the project, came with three parking spaces and sold for HK$639.7 million, or HK$140,800 per square foot, topping CK Asset’s previous record high of HK$136,000 per square foot at its 21 Borrett Road project in February.

An adjacent unit in the 12-storey building was sold on the same day for a price of HK$560.9 million, or HK$134,000 per square foot, which brought the Wheelock-Nan Fung joint venture a combined HK$1.2 billion ($154 million).

Ups and Downs at The Peak

Last year, the project’s third phase recorded only one sale priced at HK$533.1 million in July, compared with three sales totalling HK$1.69 billion as of November this year.

The turn of events followed a market slide in 2019, which saw a homebuyer forfeit HK$36 million to back out of a HK$721.88 million luxury home deal at Mount Nicholson, as home prices slid 7.2 percent since peaking in July of the preceding year.

Hong Kong’s luxury residential market in the first half of this year continued to grow despite the pandemic, with sales of luxury homes in two of Hong Kong’s most affluent residential areas averaging HK$72,000 and HK$75,000 per square foot — more than double the average prices in the mass residential market.

The Mount Nicholson project had been sweeping up record-breaking transactions earlier this year, including the sale of the world’s priciest parking spots to the executive director of Hong Kong’s Texwinca Holdings at HK$11.9 million each in May, the South China Morning Post reported.

Among the wealthy buyers at Mount Nicholson are Alice Ho and Sabrina Ho, daughters of the late Hong Kong casino magnate Stanley Ho, who in 2016 were reported to have purchased units A and B on both the 9th and 10th floor in the project’s second phase for a combined HK$1.29 billion.

Low Supply, High Demand

With low residential supply on Hong Kong Island, the recent sales at 8 Mount Nicholson Road came as luxury homebuyers continued to compete for remaining units, while developers in the city scrambled to secure new sites. Just last month, about a 3 kilometre (1.8 mile) drive from Wheelock and Nan Fung’s joint project, a 3,695 square foot home at Sun Hung Kai’s Central Peak II sold for HK$352.5 million.

Within that same month, Hong Kong’s Peterson Group acquired a site in Happy Valley for HK$1.24 billion, surpassing its HK$1 billion valuation, with plans to redevelop the site into low-density luxury flats.

Last December, Wheelock’s Wharf Holdings unit agreed to purchase the city’s priciest residential site on The Peak’s Mansfield Road for a record-breaking HK$12 billion.

The same-day sales at Mount Nicholson marked a continuous growth of Hong Kong’s luxury sector, rebounding from the full-year drop of 8.2 percent in luxury capital values last year.