Asia´s ‘most expensive’ apartment in Hong Kong

HONG KONG: Home may be where the heart is, but in Hong Kong it comes at a record price -- more than $71 million for a single apartment.

A well-heeled buyer snapped up two adjacent mountain-top pads -- each more than 4,000 square feet (370 square metres) -- for an eye-watering combined price of US$149.1 million.

The smaller of the two properties closed at $71.7 million, making it Asia´s most expensive apartment by area, at a whopping $17,000 per square foot, according to Bloomberg News.

The price smashed the previous record paid for a place to sleep in Hong Kong´s red-hot property market, when a duplex unit on the island topped out at $13,439 per square foot in September.

A month later an office building in downtown Hong Kong sold for a record $5 billion.

In June a single parking space changed hands for $664,200, part of a boom in commercial and residential property prices fuelled by an influx of money from wealthy mainland Chinese investors and developers.

The surging property market has become a political issue as costs in one of the world´s most expensive cities continue to soar, forcing some small businesses to close due to sky-high rents while many residents cannot afford to buy or rent decent homes.

An official study last week showed nearly 20 percent of the city´s 7.35 million people live below the poverty line.