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Developers have applied for the presale consent for three projects that offer 2,966 units altogether, the most in three years, while more buyers rushed to buy homes in Yuen Long and Hung Shui Kiu.

Government data also showed that only 508 private homes were completed in August, down 53.7 percent month-on-month to a seven-month low.

Meanwhile, Noelle Kwok Hew-yin, the daughter of Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong, the former joint chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties (0016), bought a 4,597-square-foot luxury home at 33 Island Road in Repulse Bay for HK$505 million.

The apartment includes a 2,600 -sq-ft garden and the per-square-foot price was HK$109,854, according the Land Registry.

Kwok's daughter paid a stamp duty of HK$21.5 million, or 4.25 percent of the property price, meaning the flat was her starter home. The seller was a company registered outside of Hong Kong named Linkful Shares, which enjoyed a paper gain of HK$205 million, or 68 percent after holding for 10 years.

Local media reported that the former owner was actually billionaire King Pak-fu, who ranked 165th on the Forbes Chinese Rich List in 2015 with a net worth of US$1.9 billion (HK$14.8 billion) at that time.

He was engaged in the IT business in the 1990s and then set foot in the mainland real estate market. In 2010, King moved to Hong Kong and successively took over three Hong Kong shell stock listed companies.

However, things changed in 2018 with many giant financial players like China Minsheng Investment Group and China Huarong Asset Management (2799) going into a series of debt crises, dragging King and his companies down along with them.

Presale applications rise to three-year high