(Yicai) July 25 -- Residents in Hong Kong and Macao are more willing to purchase houses in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area after the implementation of several favorable policies this year, especially after Guangzhou eased home-buying restrictions, Yicai learned from real estate developers.

New World China offered a discount of up to 9 percent to Hong Kong residents who buy apartments in a project in Guangzhou right after the city’s policy easing, the Chinese arm of Hong Kong-based builder New World Development told Yicai. More than 50 groups from Hong Kong visited the project on the day the offer was launched, it added.

On July 5, Guangzhou adjusted its home-buying policy for residents in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and overseas regions. These groups can buy one house of up to 120 square meters in areas with purchase limitations after submitting some application materials. However, they have no restrictions over the size and number of houses they can buy in areas without purchase limitations.

Guangzhou is close to Hong Kong and Macao, and many residents from the two special administrative regions, Taiwan, and overseas work in the city, so there are frequent people exchanges, said Yang Yongjun, research director at the South China Branch of the China Index Academy. Easing house purchase restrictions in Guangzhou will surely attract potential offshore buyers and accelerate sales, Yang noted.

The demand from Hong Kong and Macao residents to buy apartments in Guangdong will continue to increase because traveling between the southern province and the SARs has become more convenient thanks to the opening of new support infrastructures, such as the mega cross-sea bridges Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Yang believes.

Hong Kong residents usually buy second houses in Guangzhou because they mostly work in the Chinese mainland, according to the head of a housing project near Guangzhou South Railway Station developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties.

Over 600 residents in Hong Kong and Macao have visited the above project this year, and nearly 70 percent of the buyers are from Hong Kong, a person in charge of related business at Sun Hung Kai told Yicai.

Hong Kong residents’ demand for buying houses in the whole Greater Bay area is becoming more integrated and has eased entry-exit policies and issued more favorable policies for house buyers.

Over 400 residents in Hong Kong and Macao and foreigners have bought houses in a project developed by New World China in Foshan, with the popularity of the project recently soaring four-fold, the firm said.

Nearly one-third of the buyers of houses in a New World China project in Huizhou are from Hong Kong this year, the head of a project in Huizhou noted.

According to a survey carried out by Bank of China (Hong Kong) last year, about 46 percent of over 2,700 people said they would consider buying homes in the GBA, with Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Zhongshan as the preferred cities.

Editor: Futura Costaglione