Price reduction sale! Li Ka-shing sells "Seaview Estate" at half price

According to the financial news app Zhitong Finance, as reported by Securities Times, Li Ka-shing's "Maritime Bay" project in Dongguan is selling its remaining properties at a 50% discount. Sales staff have indicated that after the discount, the average selling price of the Maritime Bay project is as low as 14,000 RMB per square meter, with the lowest price at 13,000 RMB per square meter, and a starting down payment of 140,000 RMB. Previously, the average selling price of the project was around 23,000 to 24,000 RMB per square meter, reaching over 30,000 RMB per square meter at its peak. The current discounted price is nearly halved compared to the peak.

It is reported that the project, once known as the "largest golf villa community in Asia," has been in development for 25 years since the land was acquired in 1999. However, after Hutchison Whampoa, under Li Ka-shing, held the land idle for 95 months, the "Maritime Bay" project developed by Hutchison Whampoa Dongguan was fined 79.15 million RMB in 2007 for land hoarding. It wasn't until 2014 that the project was just over halfway completed. Data shows that at that time, the average price of Maritime Bay had exceeded 30,000 RMB per square meter.

A significant feature of Changjiang Real Estate's entry into the mainland for property development is the slow development and hoarding of land to benefit from land appreciation, allowing them to sell at high prices and earn substantial land premiums. Some analysts believe that even with such a significant price reduction, the developer of Maritime Bay will not incur losses based on the land price at the time of acquisition.

The average selling price of new houses in Dongguan has dropped by about 20% in the past year, and "price reduction to increase sales volume" is the common marketing strategy for all properties currently on sale. Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Guangdong Provincial Urban Planning Institute Housing Policy Research Center, stated that the Maritime Bay project in Dongguan was approved for pre-sale in June 2023. Since obtaining pre-sale approval, the project has been slow to sell over the past year, and a significant discount to boost sales speed is a normal choice.

It is worth noting that in the first half of the year, Li Ka-shing has already cashed out billions of Hong Kong dollars through three "major discount sales." On April 6, the "Blue Coast" project in Wong Chuk Hang on the south side of Hong Kong Island was sold at a 30% discount; on April 22, the new residential project "Ming Ri · Jiu Du Shan El Futuro" in the traditional luxury residential area of Mid-Levels in Sha Tin saw price reductions of 23% to 32%; on May 19, the residential project "#LYOS" in the northwest of the New Territories offered discounts of around 25% for apartment units and up to 32% for garden duplex units. It is evident that Li Ka-shing is quickly raising funds through price reductions to cope with the current market uncertainties