Parking slot sold for R1.4m
2012-11-27 09:41
SKY-ROCKETING PRICES AMID SKYSCRAPERS: Investors have their eyes on parking spaces in Hong Kong after an indiviual slot sold for the equivalent of R1.4-million.
HONG KONG, China - An individual car parking space has sold for the equivalent of R1.4-million as investors seek new ways to make money amid sky-high prices on sky-high flats.
Buyers have turned to car parks to make quick gains since the government imposed a series of measures to try to cool the Chinese city's overheated housing market.
INFLATED MARKET
But the soaring prices of parking spaces is raising concern that money flowing into the city could further inflate the red-hot property market, the South China Morning Post reported.
Tycoon Li Ka-shing's flagship Cheung Kong Holdings made an equivalent of about R681-million over the weekend when it sold 514 car-park slots, according to the Post and Standard newspapers. Some of them, priced between R1.1-million and R1.4-million in the New Territories bordering mainland China, were quickly resold for profits of about R342 000 each, the reports said.
Cheung Kong could not immediately confirm the sales when contacted.
The parking can be rented for anything from R4300 to R5300 a month, fetching a yield of about four percent and attracting investors after housing market sentiment was dented by the cooling measures.
PROPERTY UP 20%
Wong Leung-sing, research head of estate agency Centaline, said: "It's natural as people don't want their money to stay idle in the bank. The measures force people to turn to speculation in the car-park market.”
In October 2012 the government announced special stamp duties on properties re-sold within three years of purchase to try to rein in home prices.
The price for a small to medium apartment surged 20% in the first nine months of 2012.
