戴德梁行：今日全球楼市速览(2010.03.05)

Hong Kong

1.     New World Development and Wheelock Properties have agreed to pay more than HK$9100 per square foot for MTR Corp's HK$18 billion Austin Station project in West Kowloon, signaling that they expect prices in the area to continue to soar. The Lands Department has imposed a land premium levy of about HK$11.71 billion, or HK$9130 per sq ft, for the site, its most expensive land premium levy ever. (SCMP).

2.     Secondary sales in the mass housing segment jumped across the city last week as buyers shrugged off government measures aimed at cooling down demand in the luxury market sector. (SCMP).

3.     Policy measures introduced last week to raise the cost of buying homes in Hong Kong's booming luxury market have so far had little impact on buying demand, agents say. (SCMP).

4.     Hong Kong home prices recorded the strongest inflation-adjusted gains in a survey of 34 property markets last year, followed by Taiwan. The Global Property Guide's 2009 survey of residential property prices showed Hong Kong housing prices ended the year up 20.8 per cent in real terms against 2008 year-end prices, after a 15 per cent decline in last year's first quarter triggered by the global financial crisis. (SCMP).

5.     The government has decided to give the Murray Building in Central to the developer who offers to pay the most, despite being castigated for awarding the historic Marine Police Headquarters on the same basis, and says the design for its conversion to a hotel does not need to be examined by the Town Planning Board. (SCMP).