“The effect [of the move] is more business to our frontline workers in the real estate agency industry as a whole,” Siu said. “We absolutely welcome this.”

The cooling measures were scrapped with immediate effect on February 28, ending the imposition of a buyer’s stamp duty designed to target non-permanent residents, a stamp duty for second-time purchasers and a special stamp duty aimed at homeowners who resold their property within two years.

Leung Chun-ying imposed the curbs to rein in property speculation and reduce external demand when he was chief executive from 2012 to 2017.

Property agency giant Midland Realty said the number of transactions at the city’s 35 largest housing estates hit three figures for two consecutive weeks after the measures were lifted, the highest level in nearly two years.

The transaction volume was more than 1.5 times higher than last year’s average of 54 cases per week, the agency said.

“The trading performance of new properties has been brilliant and the trading volume of second-hand ones has further improved,” a Midland spokesman said last Monday.

The number of transactions at South Horizons in Ap Lei Chau and Tai Po Centre in the New Territories both increased by 400 per cent, respectively, securing 10 and five deals between March 4 and 10, up from just two and one the previous week, Midland said.

Uptown East in Kowloon Bay, a new project, sold its first round of 336 flats on Sunday after it received 6,899 registrations, an oversubscription of more than 19.5 times.

James Cheung King-tat, the executive director of Centaline Surveyors, a subsidiary of another estate agency giant Centaline Property Agency, said home prices did not record a surge in line with the transaction volume because home sellers had taken a conservative view of the city’s economic prospects.

HKMA asks banks to exercise caution when lending for ‘confirmor sales’

“Even the price increase for first-hand properties has remained small as developers scramble to sell off their unsold units,” he added.

But Cheung said he expected the property market to warm up further with other “feelgood factors” predicted for later in the year giving a boost to the market.

“We expect the interest rates to decrease in the second half of this year, lessening the mortgage holders’ burden,” he said.

The Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong earlier estimated home prices to rebound by 5 to 7 per cent this year.

“Although the world’s economy isn’t doing great, it’s begun to gain the momentum to recover slowly,” association chairman Stewart Leung Chi-kin said last week.

Siu also warned the average number of complaints might increase with the surge in deals and advised prospective homebuyers to consult banks before they made any decisions.

Buyers should pay attention to potentially illegal advertisements that provided misleading information by methods such as mixing up the saleable area – the actual size of a home – and the gross area, which includes common areas such as lobbies, partitions, mechanical shafts and ducts.

“[Property agents] should never tell buyers how much the lenders can offer for the mortgage,” Siu said. “Some banks don’t provide mortgages for properties such as village houses.”

He also told homebuyers to find out whether a house might not be eligible for a mortgage because of a past death at the property.

“There is no complete definition of a haunted house,” Siu said. “The most proper way is to ask a bank first about whether someone died there or jumped to their deaths there.”

Hong Kong to take more cautious approach to land sales, development chief says

The authority issued a circular last December on the sale of incomplete properties in mainland China and overseas, requiring real property agents to engage a lawyer based in those jurisdictions to provide legal advice covering due diligence and key information on the seller and the property project.

The new measure will take effect on July 1 and agents who violate the rule may be subject to disciplinary action, with penalties ranging from a reprimand and fine to having their licence revoked.

As the mainland’s property market has lurched from crisis to crisis, with some major developers mired in debt, it has become increasingly common for construction projects to be left unfinished.

Advertisements for properties in places such as Britain, Australia and Japan are also often found in the city.

Siu said that the new arrangement ensured buyers could seek legal recourse through a local lawyer if they encountered misleading information from a seller.

He also reminded homebuyers that some places might not protect buyers of yet-to-be completed property as well as Hong Kong did. He suggested they contact a licensed agent in the city to help handle the purchase.

Authorities implemented a tenancy control mechanism dedicated to subdivided flats in 2022 to offer four-year security of tenure for the tenants and restrict the rate of rent increase on tenancy renewal to no more than 10 per cent.

Siu said the authority had fielded 13 complaints about real property agents’ breach of the control regulations, of which four were under investigation, by the end of 2023.

The remaining nine cases could not be continued because of insufficient information, he added.

Siu also warned real property agents to ensure they complied with the control mechanism as infractions could attract punishments ranging from a fine to licence revocation.