11 Lai Tak Group: Hong Kong Commercial Property Transactions Reach Four-Month High in November

Ricacorp Properties' director of commercial properties, Wong Ying-nin, said that the buying and selling of commercial properties in Hong Kong has been steadily increasing for the past 3 months, and it is expected to continue to improve with the overall economy and retail sector showing positive signs. According to preliminary temporary figures from the Land Registry, there were 367 cases of commercial property transactions registered in Hong Kong in November, an increase of 18 cases or 5.16% compared to the previous month, reaching a four-month high. The total value of registrations in November was 45.41 billion Hong Kong dollars, a slight decrease of 1.4% from the previous month, mainly due to a higher base in the previous month with transactions exceeding one billion Hong Kong dollars. Transactions in the three major categories of properties in November saw two increases and one decrease, with commercial buildings showing the largest increase of nearly 45%, shop transactions increasing by over 9%, and industrial buildings decreasing by 13.68%. Zhu Liang-hong, Senior Business Director of Ricacorp Properties' Commercial Department, noted that after two consecutive months of growth, the number of industrial building transactions in Hong Kong decreased by 13.68% in November, reaching 164 cases, remaining at the second-highest level in nearly 4 months. The market share of industrial building transactions in the previous month was only 44.7%, a decrease of 9.7 percentage points compared to the previous month. The total value of industrial building transactions in November was 14.65 billion Hong Kong dollars, an increase of 8.5% from the previous month, reaching the highest level in nearly 7 months, with an average transaction price of approximately 8.93 million Hong Kong dollars. Regarding commercial building transactions, Wong Ying-nin mentioned that several commercial projects, such as the International Enterprise Centre, Dahua Centre, and 83 Wing Hong Street, have seen a significant number of first-hand transactions, leading to a rare breakthrough of over 100 commercial building transactions for the third time this year. In November, there were a total of 120 commercial building transactions, an increase of 44.58% compared to the previous month, making it the category with the largest increase, accounting for 32.7% of total transactions. The total value of commercial building transactions increased by 27.4%, reaching 20.2 billion Hong Kong dollars, marking a consecutive 2-month increase and hitting the highest level in nearly 3 months. For shop transactions, Raymond Cheng, Senior Business Director of Ricacorp Properties' Shop, Commercial, and Investment Department, pointed out that shop transactions have been fluctuating for the past 5 months, with November's performance slightly below the monthly average for the year. In November, there were a total of 83 shop transactions, an increase of 9.2% compared to the previous month, but still 6.7% lower than the monthly average of 89 transactions in the first 11 months of the year. However, the total value of shop transactions in November plummeted by 36.8%, reaching only 10.56 billion Hong Kong dollars, mainly due to a higher proportion of low-price shop transactions in the month.