HKREI

A house and plot of land at 13 Big Wave Bay Road sold in December 2009 to the billionaire founder of a mainland Internet company. The purchase price was a cool $480m for around 2,300sqm of land with an existing 10,000sqft residential dwelling on it. In October, 2006 an agreement for sale and purchase was entered into by George Sze Kwong Chao (趙世光) to purchase the property for $380m, and the transaction completed 6 months later. The capital appreciation on this over the three year holding period was $100 million.
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The owner of Regal Court, Perfect Perform Industrial Limited (PPIL), has applied for planning permission (Application no. A/H5/389) to demolish the 22-storey residential building and develop a 26-storey modern office building in its place. The building’s location at 12-18 Wing Fung Street is in the heart of Swire’s Star Street district. According to the meeting of the Metro Planning Committee of the Town Planning Board, their decision has been deferred while they wait for further information from the Applicant.
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For the super wealthy in Hong Kong a new luxury home option is taking shape at “Longview”, No. 45 Tai Tam Road. The 3,009 sqm site and existing dwelling was purchased on 18th December, 2009 for HK$480 million by Tania Development Limited, a Joint Venture between National Electronics Holdings Limited (NEHL) (0213.HK) and J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM). Their stated plan is to redevelop the site and build two residential houses.
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The well publicised sale of the world’s most overpriced expensive apartment raced around the media in late 2009. The developer, Henderson Land, has been quiet about the identity of the purchaser so how could we dig a bit deeper on this transaction to get more information?

Land search
As we’ve written about before, transactions are recorded in the Land Registry and are listed against the property they relate to. Our first stop is the Land Registry’s IRIS land search website to pay $10 for a land search on the unit.

After a brief search we can see the unit we are interested in:
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A planning proposal to convert an industrial building to a hotel has been deferred for a second time, at the request of the applicant. Power Concept Properties Limited applied for planning permission for an in-situ Hotel conversion of Perfectech Centre, an industrial building in Aberdeen/Wong Chuk Hang (Application no. A/H15/237).

According to the Application documents, the proposed hotel will be 25 storeys high and have no more than 98 guest rooms. Facilities promised include amongst others a swimming pool, restaurant and outdoor landscaped area.
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An application for planning permission for a larger InterContinental-owned Indigo Hotel has been rejected by the Hong Kong Town Planning Board. (More details of the rejected Application can be seen here: A/H5/383)
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As a property investor it is important to gather and analyse objective data on the property market and the overall macro-economy. Macro-economic data is widely available in the form of interest rates, inflation or CPI rates and GDP growth rates. When looking at the property market, we can make use of a property index to follow the general trend in property prices.
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Swire Properties purchased Tai Sang Commercial Building for HKD$1.36bn in November of 2007 and given the proximity to Pacific Place 3 theres a chance this latest acquisition may be the future Pacific Place 4.

The building was previously owned by the mid-size Hong Kong bank, Tai Sang Bank. It is in fairly poor condition right now and as of late 2008 many office tenants have vacated the building. One might speculate that Swire did not seriously attempt to retain these tenants and may have some plans brewing for a new use for the building (or at least a substantial re-furbishment, otherwise known as “Mutton dressed as Lamb”).

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The MTRC issued a press release (pdf) highlighting their green light from the Government to proceed with a detailed proposal for the scope, cost and implementation of the West Island Line.

The West Island Line is an extension to the MTR Island Line and includes the addition of three more stations to the west of the existing Sheung Wan station. The additional stations are Sai Ying Pun, University and Kennedy Town.

The new line, once completed will provide a great boost to the station areas and neighbourhoods in the vicinity and should lead to an increase in property prices in the area. Read more

A licensing regime for the estate agency trade has come into effect since 1 January 1999. An individual or a company carrying on estate agency work in Hong Kong must hold a valid licence. It is an offence to practise estate agency work without a licence.
Source: Hong Kong Estate Agent’s Authority

To do real estate agency work in Hong Kong you must have an Estate Agent’s License. Fortunately, the process is simple but it does require some effort to study the material. While preparing for the exam I spoke to people who had passed and I was told it was easy and required little study. I took their advice, did some basic study and was rewarded with a fail and 3 month wait till the next exam. Moral of the story? Study. Read more