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HONG KONG: A Hong Kong developer paid 165 million US dollars for a plot of prime residential land in the city's Kowloon district on Tuesday, defying government efforts to rein in property prices.
Kerry Properties snapped up the luxury residential site at 1 Ede Road for 1.28 billion Hong Kong dollars, well above estimates that ranged between 868 million and 1.09 billion Hong Kong dollars.
The site, which measures 2,400 square metres (25,800 square feet), sold for almost double the opening bid.
The sale also set a per-square-foot record for Kowloon, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
"The site is located in a very nice neighbourhood where supply is short," Kerry's executive director Ho Shut-Kan was quoted as saying.
The auction comes two weeks after Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing, snapped up two prime residential sites for prices well above market estimates.
Developers have remained upbeat about Hong Kong's soaring residential market despite government measures to rein in prices, including boosting land supply and tightening mortgage lending.
House prices in Hong Kong surged nearly 45 percent from their trough at the end of 2008, while prices of some luxury flats have returned to, or surpassed, the peaks of the 1997 property boom.
The government has held six land auctions in the past year with plans for two more before the end of September.
- AFP/de
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