Hong Kong’s first-home buyers snap up Henderson’s Vantage flats in Hung Hom, giving respite to declining property prices

Hong Kong’s weekend property buyers are back, as more than 2,000 people thronged a sales office to bid for 246 flats offered by Henderson Land Development in Hung Hom.

The selling price of Henderson’s Vantage project starts from HK$3.83 million for the smallest 170 square feet unit, to HK$8.57 million for the biggest units at 425 sq ft (39.5 square metres), or a price range of HK$17,809 to HK$23,061 per sq ft. Every unit at the apartment complex was sold by 5:30pm, sales agents said.

Nine potential buyers registered for every available unit at the project, underscoring how the city’s residential property market may have found a temporary bottom, as new-home prices reached their 28-month peak in August and declined ever since. First-home buyers are piling into the market to get on the property ladder, encouraged by a more dovish outlook for mortgage rates.

“The Vantage project features small and medium-sized flat with low total prices, so it is popular among first-home buyers,” said Louis Chan Wing-kit, vice-chairman for Asia-Pacific at Centaline Property Agency, who estimated that 40 per cent of the buyers of Vantage were young people.

The size of Vantage’s apartments required smaller lump sums to buy, which made the project within the affordability of many first-home buyers. The popularity of Vantage could also be a shot in the arm for the developers of so-called micro-apartments, or homes smaller than 200 sq ft, who may put more of these tiny abodes on the market.