Hong Kong property agencies reward ‘red packets’ to boost sales

Centaline and Midland incentivise sales reps during Lunar New Year 

Hong Kong’s biggest real estate agents, Centaline Property Agency and Midland Realty, incentivise their sales agents with “lai see” or red packets of up to HKD900,000 (USD116,000) to sell flats during Lunar New Year, reported the South China Morning Post.  

Henderson Land Development, winner of Best Condo Development (Hong Kong) at the PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards (Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau), plan to hand out as much as HKD23,000 to each buyer at eight residential projects going on sale, until end of February.  

Sammy Po Siu-ming, chief executive at Midland Realty’s residential department, said that from 12 to 14 February, the company rewarded agents with HKD2,000 in lai see for every flat they sold and HKD1,000 to every flat leased. 

“We expect to give away about HKD400,000 to HKD500,000 lai see in total as incentives to encourage sales,” said Po.  

Centaline has planned to set aside the same amount of lai see as last year at HKD400,000.  

Throughout the whole of February, Centaline will reward at least HKD10,000 to any sales representative that sells a new flat. Bigger cash rewards are given out to those who sell units worth more than HKD10 million.  

Besides the cash reward, agents may also receive an HKD500 red packet for every lease and sale transaction they manage until February 16.  

Louis Chan, Asia-Pacific vice-chairman and chief executive of the residential division at Centaline, said, “we have handed out 195 lai see packets each containing HKD500 in the first five days since we started the incentive scheme.”  

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Henderson Land Development will offer packets to increase sales of eight residential projects from February 12 until the end of the month. The projects include Reach Summit’s Sereno Verde Phase 5 in Yuen Long, Novum West in Sai Ying Pun, and Novum East in Quarry Bay.  

Thomas Lam Tat-man, Henderson’s sales general manager, said, “sales of all residential projects will operate as usual during the Lunar New Year. The property exhibition centre at Miramar Plaza will have a series of events to celebrate the Year of the Ox.”