A plot of land at Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak airport has failed to sell at auction in a sign the city’s worsening economic crisis is starting to take its toll on the property market.
“Even though the pandemic situation in Hong Kong has improved recently, the economy is expected to be unstable and business will be difficult, ” said Thomas Lam, an executive director at Knight Frank LLP, who valued the plot at between HK$6bil and HK$7.1bil. To be sure, the plot may have had less appeal to developers, because it can’t be used for a residential project.
Most businesses were shuttered from mid-March on and the state imposed social-distancing rules to limit the spread of Covid-19, effectively outlawing in-person home showings. As a result, new leases in Manhattan tumbled 71% in April from a year earlier, appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a report Thursday.