（By Liang Yueqin）
Slack season of residential renting market in September and college students out of renting market not only shrank the second hand property leasing, but also dragged down the price.
In September, 50 indexing projects in Hong Kong gained 1,064 leases, which decreased 14% by month, being the floor in 7 months, pointed by latest data of Real Estate Research Department of Ricacorp Properties.
Residential lease market steps to the slack period and it is estimated that many owners change selling into renting since the second hand real estate transaction is extremely slump, pointed by Zhou Manjie, the Director of the Real Estate Research Department of Ricacorp Properties.
Plus with the two to three large projects will be occupied in the end of the year, it is predicted houses for lease will be more, dropping down the rent by estimated range of 5% at the least.
The average transaction sq ft rent decreased by 0.2%.
In fact, the average transaction sq ft rent under cover area of the 50 indexing projects in Hong Kong last month was HKD 25.62, falling slightly by 0.2%, because large project Century Gateway's occupation increased the supply of rented house and pulled down the rent of residential apartments.
The ratio of lease cases to total transactions (renting and trading) increased from 69% in August to 74% in September because of the slump of the second hand property in last month, making the second since there was record in January 2005 and just below the 79% in this March, Zhou Manjie said.
By districts, the worst one is Kowloon of which the lease in last month among 20 indexing projects was only 408 cases, falling sharply 20% by month; 21 indexing projects in New Territories just gained 434 cases of lease, dropping 16% by month; Hong Kong Island's 9 indexing projects had 222 cases of rent, increasing 9% than 204 cases in August.
Demand for one or two rooms units decreased.
Analyzing the projects, which mostly supply one or two rooms units, they receive less and less renting because of the decreasing of young new buyers and student tenants, the renting in Whampoa Garden, Telford Garden, Park Central, City One, Sha Tin Centre, Tsuen Wan Centre, Park Island and YOHO Town among fell by between 28% and 58%, which is the best prove.
As for the rent trend, the weighted average sq ft rent under cover area of 50 indexing projects last month was HKD 25.62 with slightly fall by 0.2%; The weighted average rent in Kowloon among 20 projects in last month was 25.45 with a larger fall of 0.3%; The rent of 20 indexing projects in New Territories rose 0.1% by month to HKD 20.62 for each sq ft; The rent of 9 projects in Hong Kong Island also dropped by a range of 0.1% to the average sq ft price of HKD 29.46.
Projects at largest falling are mostly located in New Territories, Tierra Verde in Tsing Yi among was in the largest decrease of 4.4% by month to sq ft rent of HKD 24.1; Laguna Verde in Hung Hom, City One in Sha Tin and Tai Hing Gardens in Tuen Mun were fell on average sq ft rent at same time by 3.4% to respectively HKD 25.4, HKD 25.5 and HKD 14.1.
