Hong Kong Apartment Sale Sets New Record for City

Hong Kong’s luxury continues its comeback, as evidenced by a new record-setting sale in the city.

A duplex apartment at Henderson Land Development Company and New World Development Company’s The Legacy residential complex sold for HK$880 million ($113 million), Bloomberg reported. That price sets a record for an apartment in the city, far surpassing the all-time highs reached in 2021, which saw an apartment sale record at HK$640 million ($82.2 million). The buyer’s identity is unknown as the transaction is happening through company transfer.

The city’s residential property market hit a peak in 2021, and then experienced a 30 percent drop, per Centaline Property Centa-City Leading Index data cited by Bloomberg. The record-setting sale price marks the latest vote of confidence in the local market’s recovery.

“Hong Kong is showing the first signs of recovery, supported by interest rate cuts that have helped to stabilize financing conditions,” Liam Bailey, global head of research at Knight Frank, said. “Investors, both private and institutional, are returning to the luxury sector, where scarcity and notable price corrections from peak levels are creating selective opportunities.”

The residence, located in the Mid-Levels area of Hong Kong island, spans 8,310 square feet with four bedrooms. The unidentified buyer dropped approximately HK$220 million ($28.3 million) for a smaller connecting unit in order to achieve more privacy.

The closest an apartment in the city came to setting a new record this year was a penthouse in Mount Nicholson that sold for HK$609 million ($78.3 million) in May; that property, though lower in overall sales price from the Legacy duplex, still maintains the title for most expensive residence by price per square foot.

Both apartments don’t come close to the most expensive home this year in Hong Kong. In August, a five-bedroom, 11,442-square-foot mansion at 1 Gough Hill Road in Hong Kong’s Peak area sold for nearly HK$1.1 billion ($140 million). That sale beat out the sale of a HK$1 billion ($128 million) villa in the Kowloon Tong neighborhood earlier this year.

— Chris Malone Méndez