For sale at US$38m

Until now, Hong Kong’s most expensive flat per square foot is a 5,497 square feet unit on the 80th floor of The Arch in Kowloon, another development by Sun Hung Kai. –PHOTO: AFP

HONG KONG – TWO penthouses in Hong Kong were each put on sale for a record US$38.5 million (S$54.5 million), a developer said Friday, as demand from wealthy Chinese buyers has sent prices in the city soaring.

Sun Hung Kai, the world’s largest developer by market value, said it raised the asking price by 20 per cent for the 4,000 square feet penthouses on top of the Cullinan twin towers, Hong Kong’s tallest residential development.

The properties will be the city’s most expensive apartments if they are sold at the 300 million Hong Kong dollar asking price, which translates into US$75,000 per square foot.

‘We decided to increase the asking price after seeing the market is going up so much,’ a spokesman for the developer told AFP, adding that buyers from Hong Kong, China and overseas had shown interest in the units in recent months.

The penthouses, on the 91st to 93rd floor of the 270-metre (886-feet) towers, have their own outdoor garden and swimming pool.

Until now, Hong Kong’s most expensive flat per square foot is a 5,497 square feet unit on the 80th floor of The Arch in Kowloon, another development by Sun Hung Kai. It was sold for US$225 million, or US$40,931 per square foot, in June last year.

Prices in the city’s luxury market have been largely driven up by super-rich mainlanders who tend to target new, top-end properties, as the Chinese economy has picked up in recent months.

Buyers from the mainland buy in Hong Kong as an investment as well as a means to obtain residency in the city, which requires an investment of at least US$6.5 million.

Earlier this week, a buyer paid a US$24.5 million, or US$30,025 per square foot, for an apartment in the Masterpiece luxury development in Tsim Sha Tsui district, making it the most expensive one-bedroom flat in town. — AFP

Source : Straits Times – 18 Sep 2009