〈China Daily, December 16, 2017〉Two adjacent plots of land along Avenida Dr Sun Yat-Sen in Taipa have been sold for HK$3.51 billion (3.61 billion patacas) to Hong Kong-listed company Jiayuan International Group Limited, real estate and investment management company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) said in a statement yesterday.

The statement from JLL, which facilitated the deal, said that the sale of the 5,597-square-metre site has “[broken] the record of transaction values of development sites in the city”.

According to JLL, the two adjacent plots of land designated Lot TN20 and Lot TN24 are freeholds which are extremely rare and make up only about 5 percent of the overall land supply in Macau.

The JLL statement said that the purchaser, Jiayuan International Group Limited, is a property developer with over 20 years’ experience in real estate development, which has developed a total of 21 large-scale residential complexes and eight integrated commercial projects in different cities in mainland China.

The statement did not say how the buyer plans to develop the tract of land.

According to JLL, with the acquisition of the two connected plots of land in Macau this year, Jiayuan International has extended its business footprint in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA).

JLL Macau Managing Director Gregory Ku Ka Hou was quoted by the statement as saying that major infrastructure improvements in the region would stimulate the local property market.

“With the major infrastructures such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and Guangzhou-Zhuhai Intercity Rail Extension entering their completion stage, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area beginning to take shape, the developers in [mainland] China have started to look for opportunities in the region,” Ku said.

〈The Standard, December 15, 2017〉Sun Hung Kai Properties (0016) sold two units at its Victoria Harbour project in North Point at a price of HK$58,897 per square foot for the first one and HK$56,660 per sq ft for the other one, the highest prices fetched so far in the Eastern district.

The project is located at North Point Estate, formerly occupied by a public housing estate.

One of the flats has a size of 1,585 sellable sq ft and was sold for HK$89.8 million, while the other, a 1,173-sq-ft flat was sold for HK$68.73 million.

SHKP said it will launch the pre-sale of units at its St Barths project in Ma On Shan at the beginning of next year. The first phase of the project will provide 353 flats, with sizes of 380 sq ft to 980 sq ft.

Meanwhile, a local investor bought four car parks in Tseung Kwan O for HK$8.6 million. Three of them are located at Lohas Park and were transacted at HK$2.08 million to HK$2.15 million. The fourth one is located at Tseung Kwan O Plaza which fetched HK$2.2 million. Also in in Tseung Kwan O, a 1,372-sq-ft flat with a rooftop deck at Wheelock Properties' (0020) Savannah project was sold for HK$35.37 million, or HK$26,000 per sellable sq ft.

Wheelock also sold two flats at its Mount Nicholson project at the Peak for a combined HK$856 million. The two flats on the seventh floor were sold to Hong Kong Jiaxin Holdings for HK$412 million for the first one and HK$444 million for the second unit or an average price of HK$96,666 per sq ft.

Also at the Peak, a house was listed on the foreclosure market recently for HK$222 million, or about HK$93,000 per sellable sq ft, sources say. It is the priciest foreclosed property at the Peak in three years.

The 2,387-sq-ft home, located at 28 Mount Austin Road, changed hands for HK$66.88 million in 2010. The owner remortgaged the house through Hang Seng Bank (0011) in 2014.

〈Asian Post, December 15, 2017〉Hong Kong is back in the top 10 most expensive cities for expatriates, driven by the higher prices of goods and a stronger currency, according to a cost-of-living survey.

Human resources consul tancy ECA International released its 2017 findings yesterday, showing that the city, which fell out of the top 10 last year, rose two places to ninth spot in global rankings.

The study takes into account the costs of daily expenses such as food, petrol and clothing.Among the priciest cities in the Asia-Pacific region for expats, Hong Kong rose three places to second, behind Tokyo. Singapore ranked ninth among Asia-Pacific cities and 21st in the world.

Meanwhile, Tokyo fell to eighth place in global rankings, losing last year's No 1 spot to Luanda in Angola.

"Faster rates of price increase in Hong Kong combined with a strengthening of the dollar against the yen both contributed to Hong Kong leapfrogging many of the Japanese locations that were ranked above it last year," Lee Quane, Asia regional director at ECA International, said.

The Hong Kong dollar strengthened more than 2 per cent against the yen over the past year.

According to the survey, a litre of petrol in Hong Kong costs US$2.13 - 142 per cent higher than in New York. A cappuccino in Hong Kong costs US$4.77, 40 per cent more than in London, while beer at a local bar costs US$11.90, 41 per cent more than even in Luanda.The survey compared prices of about 160 consumer goods and services in 262 cities.

Although rents were not considered, the record-high property prices in Hong Kong could have contributed to the rise in prices of other items, according to Quane.

〈The Standard, December 14, 2017〉The smallest unit from a nano-flat project in Yuen Long - a 187-sellable-square-foot studio flat - costs about HK$3 million.

Henderson Land (0012) put the 30 flats from its latest residential project, Park Reach, yesterday, with sizes ranging from 187 ssf to 310 ssf one-bedroom units. The first batch has asking prices averaging HK$15,763 per square foot.

The development comprises 63 flats in a seven-story building on Pat Heung Road. Project completion is scheduled for April 2019.

Henderson's general manager of sales Thomas Lam Tat-man said he expects home prices to remain stable next year. Meanwhile, the developer's unnamed North Point project will be launched at the beginning of 2018.

In Tseung Kwan O, Wheelock Properties (0020) said it will put 38 flats from its Monterey project on the market on Friday. The latest batch ranges from studios to four-bedroom homes.

The Monterey offers 926 units, from 260 ssf studios, to 1,670 ssf featured homes. There are also 22 houses of 1,843 ssf to 2,004 ssf. Construction is expected to be completed in August next year.

Meanwhile, Savills said it expects the prime rate - currently at 5 percent - to rise to between 5.5 and 5.75 percent next year, as the Hong Kong Interbank rate has surged recently, while HIBOR-based mortgages have reached the capped rate.

Commenting on developers forming consortiums to bid for government sites recently, Peter Yuen Chi-kwong, managing director and head of investment and sales at Savills, said the practice will become a norm in order to minimize risks.

〈Asian Post, December 12, 2017〉The HK$15 billion office-retail-hotel development will be a joint venture with Wing Tai Properties in an area that will undergo dramatic change

CSI Properties has unveiled a plan for an office-retail-hotel project, which will be jointly developed with Wing Tai Properties on a recently acquired site at an estimated cost of HK$15 billion.

"The site will be connected to the IFC, arts and design venue PMQ and Lan Kwai Fong [through the Central-Mid-Levels escalator]," said Mico Chung Cho-yee, the chairman of CSI.

"The area will undergo dramatic change when our project is completed."Chung was a right-hand man to PCCW chairman Richard Li Tzar-kai for five years before he left in 2003 to establish CSI.

The company, in which Chung owns a 47.9 per cent stake, has a market capitalisation of HK$3.96 billion.CSI teamed up with Wing Tai to beat eight competitors - which included the city's largest developers such as Sun Hung Kai Properties and CK Asset Holdings - for the Urban Renewal Authority's tender for the site in October.

The winning bid was not disclosed, but market watchers put a price tag of HK$11.6 billion on the site, believed to be the most valuable plot ever offered by the agency for tender.

"Lots of locals and tourists visit the area during weekends. As we saw the site has great potential and could become a new Central, we submitted a bid at the high end of our own estimation," Chung said.