Omicron: Cantopop star Joey Yung sells Hong Kong flat at a loss, leading an exodus from property market amid city’s Covid-19 surge

Canto pop star Joey Yung has sold her flat in Causeway Bay at a loss of about HK$1.1 million (US$140,966), according to sources familiar with the deal, joining a wave of Hongkongers selling their homes for a loss as they flee the city’s worsening Covid-19 situation.

The one-bedroom 465 sq ft flat at Park Haven, which was held by a company jointly owned by Yung and her mother, sold for HK$10.25 million, the sources said. The selling price was 9.7 per cent below the HK$11.35 million paid for it in 2012.

Yung’s assets and investments are all overseen and managed by her mother, so she is not fully aware of the details, her publicist at Emperor Entertainment Group said in a response to a query by the Post.

About 2.5 per cent of Hong Kong’s 1,018 transactions involving lived-in homes last year recorded a net loss, 50 basis points higher than the 2 per cent recorded in 2020, according to data compiled by Ricacorp Properties. And this trend is continuing, with the city’s resurgent Covid-19 outbreak setting daily infection records for more than two consecutive weeks now.

A flat measuring 741 sq ft at The Visionary in Tung Chung sold last week for HK$9.57 million, 1.6 per cent more than its purchase price of HK$9.42 million four years ago, resulting in a HK$310,000 net loss for the expatriate seller after the fees and commissions are added up, said Midland Realty’s area sales manager Johnny Huang.

“This was the first time in over two years that I have seen expatriates leaving Hong Kong so desperately,” Huang said. “They wanted to return to their home countries”, believing that they could get jobs at home as they find Hong Kong increasingly cut off, he said.