One in 10 new Hong Kong homes to be built by mainland Chinese developers in three years

One in 10 new privately built homes by 2019 could be built by mainland developers, opening the market for more competition and adding further downward adjustment pressure on prices, says industry experts.

JLL says apartments built by Chinese developers will account for up to 8 per cent of the overall private housing supply over the next three years, according to its latest research on China’s role in driving Hong Kong’s property market.

With around 119,000 new households expected between 2016 and 2019, about one in 10 families opting for new homes in the private market could end up living in properties built by a mainland developer, said JLL.

Fifty-six per cent of these new flats will be located in New Territories and 35 per cent in Kowloon, it said.

“We expect mainland developers will continue to expand in the city. Hong Kong’s traditional developers are still expected to dominate the market but will face increasing competition in acquiring residential plots from a larger pool of bidders,” said Denis Ma, head of research at JLL.

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Wong Leung-sing, an associate director of research at Centaline Property Agency said many mainland developers had secured development sites through government tender at high prices in the past couple of years, while Hong Kong developers took a more cautious approach.