Hong Kong possesses Asia’s tallest skyscrapers and a pricey real estate market too. Now, it also boasts having the most expensive twin apartments in the continent. Yes, a pair of apartments here have been touted as the most high-priced ones in the world. According to a report in Yahoo, two units in a luxury housing development have been sold at a whopping $149 million. Both the properties are each more than 4,000 square feet.
The larger of the two that is a 4,579 square-foot apartment, was sold to an unidentified buyer for $76.8 million whereas about $71.7 million was paid for the smaller one which is 4,242 square foot in area. The smaller one, in fact, set a record as Asia’s most expensive residence in terms of cost per square-foot at HK$132,000 (about US$16,898) per square foot. Both the apartments are in Hong Kong’s gated community of Mount Nicholson which is well positioned to benefit from the strong market demand for mega-sized ultra-luxury properties.
Hong Kong is the second-wealthiest city in the world, with much expensive property rates. Before these two luxurious apartments in Mount Nicholson, the most expensive homes sold in the region in terms of price per square foot was a HK$522 million (US$66.8 million) penthouse at Henderson Land Development’s 39 Conduit Road, in the Mid-Levels neighbourhood. Reports say that the record prices reflect the strong demand and limited supply of super luxury properties available on the market, which currently accounts for just 2 percent of the city’s housing stock which reveals that Hong Kong remains an attractive place for ultra-high net worth people to live and work in, but also reflects the scarcity value of this type of property. Hong Kong is the most expensive city for apartments, but it also has an average living space is just 150 square-feet per person, with just one-tenth of its land area is zoned for housing.
As per reports by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, China and Hong Kong added a new billionaire about every other day in 2016. A report in October said that there are 647 billionaires residing in China’s mainland and 66 live in Hong Kong. Experts feel that the string of record-breaking transactions shows that buyers remain confident about the outlook for Hong Kong’s residential property market. According to Hong Kong’s real estate consultancy Knight Frank, the high-end market will likely continue to strengthen during the remainder of the year and into 2018.