2025-02-21 28Hse Editor
7.6% lower than the record high.
The property market was sluggish last year, and property prices and land prices were all down. In recent months, the residential lands launched by the government for tenders have been sold only at backward prices or even failed bids. The Lands Department announced that the total land premium in the fourth quarter of last year was about 15.0843 billion yuan, a sharp rebound of about 6.4 times from the more than 2.029 billion yuan recorded in the third quarter. In summary, the total amount of land premium last year reached 41.482 billion yuan, a decrease of about 7.6% compared to the record high land premium of 44.898 billion yuan in 2021. ◆reporter Liang Yueqin
In the fourth quarter of last year, the case involving the largest amount of land premium was the MTR Siu Ho Wan depot project on Lantau Island, involving more than $8.6 billion. In addition, Wheelock's Kowloon Bay Kowloon Warehouse also completed a land premium during the quarter, involving approximately 2.08969 billion yuan, and the land premium per square foot of floor area was approximately 2,520 yuan. These two cases alone have involved nearly 10.7 billion yuan.
The Lands Department pointed out that in the fourth quarter of last year, a total of 22 lease amendments and 6 land exchange cases were recorded, of which 8 were technical lease amendments that did not involve the amount of land premium. Among the above-mentioned land transactions, 5 are located on Hong Kong Island, 11 are located in Kowloon, and 12 are located in the New Territories. The relevant figures do not include small house cases. Two lots were awarded by private treaty during the quarter. One of them is located in Sai Ying Pun, approved by the Urban Renewal Authority for residential development; the other is located in Pok Fu Lam, approved for commercial development. In the quarter, there was no additional lot registration.
U.S. interest rate hike last year
In summary, among the land premium revenue for the whole of last year, the first quarter of last year reached 20.553 billion yuan, which accounted for the most, a quarter-on-quarter increase of about 66%, and it was also a record high since the third quarter of 2006. During the quarter, the Housing Society paid land premiums for Site No. 1 in Kai Tak District 2B and the Jockey Club Road project in Fanling. The two projects involved more than 4.6 billion and more than 1 billion respectively. However, as the United States and Hong Kong successively raised interest rates, developers slowed down the pace of land premiums in the second and third quarters of last year, and the amount of land premiums dropped significantly. Among them, the income from land premiums in the second quarter of last year was 3.81 billion yuan, a sharp drop quarter-on-quarter 81.44%, the amount is a new record low after the third quarter of 2020; while the land premium revenue in the third quarter of last year was only more than 2.029 billion yuan, which was the smallest quarter in more than two years after the second quarter of 2020, and also decreased compared with the second quarter of last year More than 1.784 billion yuan, a drop of about 46.8%, falling for two consecutive quarters.
The fiscal year target of 120 billion is expected to be difficult to meet
In terms of fiscal year, the amount of land sales and compensation in the first three quarters of this fiscal year ended last year was only 45.565 billion yuan, which is far from the government's budget in February 2022, and the land price revenue budget for this year is 120 billion yuan. Less than 40%, there is still a gap of 74.4 billion yuan.
Since the government will launch a tender for the "Big Mac" commercial site at the junction of Sai Yee Street and Argyle Street in Mong Kok with a buildable floor area of about 1.52 million square feet this season and a residential site on Po Fung Road in Tsuen Wan, it remains to be seen whether the developer's bid can be as good as the government's I wish, but I believe it will be quite difficult for the government to meet the land sales targets this fiscal year.
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