The Land Registry recorded 5,589 sale and purchase agreements for all building units received for registration in January, up 84% on December and down 22.6% compared to the same period last year.

The total consideration for sale and purchase agreements for the month was $72 billion, up 67.2% on December and up 5.1% year-on-year.

Of the sale and purchase agreements, 4,543 were for residential units, a 120.5% rise from the previous month but down 13.8% compared to a year ago.

The total consideration for residential units was $44.9 billion, up 86.6% from December but a year-on-year drop of 9.8%.

There were 423,818 land register searches in January.