A house and plot of land at 13 Big Wave Bay Road sold in December 2009 to the billionaire founder of a mainland Internet company. The purchase price was a cool $480m for around 2,300sqm of land with an existing 10,000sqft residential dwelling on it. In October, 2006 an agreement for sale and purchase was entered into by George Sze Kwong Chao (趙世光) to purchase the property for $380m, and the transaction completed 6 months later. The capital appreciation on this over the three year holding period was $100 million.

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For the super wealthy in Hong Kong a new luxury home option is taking shape at “Longview”, No. 45 Tai Tam Road. The 3,009 sqm site and existing dwelling was purchased on 18th December, 2009 for HK$480 million by Tania Development Limited, a Joint Venture between National Electronics Holdings Limited (NEHL) (0213.HK) and J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM). Their stated plan is to redevelop the site and build two residential houses.

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The well publicised sale of the world’s most overpriced expensive apartment raced around the media in late 2009. The developer, Henderson Land, has been quiet about the identity of the purchaser so how could we dig a bit deeper on this transaction to get more information?

Land search
As we’ve written about before, transactions are recorded in the Land Registry and are listed against the property they relate to. Our first stop is the Land Registry’s IRIS land search website to pay $10 for a land search on the unit.

After a brief search we can see the unit we are interested in:

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A Land Search is a necessity when thinking of buying or renting real estate in Hong Kong. A property search at the Land Registry in Hong Kong will cost you HK$10 for a current search and HK$25 for a current and historical search. The extra $15 is definitely worth it if you are serious about the property. It shows you the history of the property including the date it received an occupation permit, among other things.

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