Hong Kong buyers splurge $1.5bn on Greater Bay Area homes

Opening of the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge excites property seekers in the Pearl River Delta

Hong Kong property seekers lavished an estimated CNY10 billion (USD1.48 billion) last year on homes in the Greater Bay Area in anticipation of an inrush of activity in the future megalopolis, the South China Morning Post reported.

Hongkongers snapped up some 10,000 homes in the area, the properties averaging at a price of a million yuan, according to Andy Lee Yiu-chi, chief executive for southern China at Centaline Property Agency.

Buyers from Hong Kong reportedly spent 10 percent more than they did in 2017, Lee added.

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The opening of the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge last year galvanised home buyers, expecting the ambitious infrastructure, dubbed the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge, would be a boost to property prices.

The Greater Bay Area covers several contiguous cities in the Pearl River Delta — Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing — that the central government in Beijing hopes to integrate into a megalopolis.

Most buyers favoured the cities of Zhuhai, Foshan and Zhongshan for their purchases. Homes in the cities reportedly sell for around a tenth of the average price in Hong Kong.

“The Zhuhai-Macau-Hong Kong bridge has made Zhuhai another important gateway to China,” Gong Weizong, the Zhuhai regional manager for Centaline, told the Post.