The Rating and Valuation Department (RVD) has announced that the RVD Property Price Index for February was 345.9 points, a four-month high, and rose by 2.22% month-on-month, the largest increase in 33 months.

The index rose for the second month in a row, with a cumulative increase of 3.28%. The most notable increase was recorded for small and medium-sized flats, which rose by 2.24% in a single month.

Mr Chan Wing-kit, Chief Executive Officer of Centaline Property's Residential Division, said that the slowing of the US interest rate hike to 0.25% for the first time in February, the reduction in stamp duty on properties under $1.08 million in the new fiscal year, and the accelerated pace of recovery in Hong Kong as a whole, led to a significant acceleration in the number of transactions and property prices in February.

The most sought-after properties were small and medium-sized ones, according to Mr Chan, who said that since the epidemic, the property market has been driven by the demand for new flats, with one to two-bedroom units being the most popular.

As of yesterday, the number of first-hand transactions exceeded 2,000, a seven-month high, while the second-hand market was hardly immune to the pressure. The decline in secondary transactions, coupled with the bank failure crisis in Europe and the US, led to a slight drop in the Centaline City Leading Index CCL released last week.

To conclude the first quarter, the first-hand market led the way, with over 3,400 transactions recorded in the first quarter, up 2.5 times on the same period last year.

The Centaline City Leading Index CCL has risen by more than 6% in the first quarter of this year, and Chan Wing Kit believes that in order to catch up with the progress, developers will remain restrained in opening prices, or even reduce prices.