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April 12, 2005

You are on the invidual archive page of Scenes from a property bubble part 821. Click Simon World weblog for the main page.
Scenes from a property bubble part 821

Part of an ongoing series.

Today's SCMP:

Suppose for a moment you have some serious money to spend on a new Hong Kong home. Equipped with at least HK$150 million, which of the following properties would you buy: a 6,000-square-foot house atop the Peak or a top-floor unit in a 1,054-flat tower block on reclaimed land in West Kowloon?

Absurd, you say. How could a Kowloon flat be worth anything near a fully detached house on the Peak?

Easy, argues developer Sun Hung Kai Properties. Tastes among Hong Kong’s well-to-do have changed, it says, and buyers are queueing up to pay more than $30,000 per square foot for penthouse duplexes in the Arch, near Kowloon Station...The duplexes offer easy access to the public transport network and range in size from 3,323 sq ft to 5,497 sq ft.

The highest unit price yet seen for a house is the $26,000 per square foot paid for 57 Plantation Road on the Peak last year. For a flat, the record figure is slightly higher – $28,000 per square foot, forked out last year for a unit in Kerry Properties’ Branksome Crest.

As an aside, it is curious that in Hong Kong all property developments are marketed with very little reference to the place themselves. Arty-farty ads, lifestyle ads, wide open spaces ads, but none that show you the dog boxes they sell at high (but sure to go higher) prices.

I always worry about a product if the advertiser isn't prepared to show it.

 posted by Simon on 04.12.05 at 11:00 AM in the




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Comments:

this is all going to end very badly....

 posted by: Edmund Lee on 04.21.05 at 11:18 AM [permalink]




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