Of the super-prime located properties, 24 were located on Hong Kong Island, spanning from the Peak to Jardine’s Lookout and Southside.
Hong Kong‘s luxury real estate market has recorded 35 transactions totaling HK$23 billion (approximately US$2.93 billion) over the past 19 months, with ownership shifting from established local property tycoons to mainland Chinese buyers who have accumulated their wealth through rapidly growing industries.
Building on this trend, wealthy buyers from mainland China were responsible for 80% of the deals worth HK$300 million, stated Thomas See, director and head of residential sales at the property consultancy.
He noted that these buyers came from emerging markets in mainland China, such as artificial intelligence, fintech, and gaming, as well as other industries that saw increases in profitability during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, including healthcare and logistics.
Of the super-prime located properties, 24 were located on Hong Kong Island, spanning from the Peak to Jardine’s Lookout and Southside, while 11 were in Kowloon’s Kai Tak and Kowloon Tong.
In April, the wife of the co-founder of the popular selfie app Meitu bought a HK$465.8 million property in the upscale Jardine’s Lookout area. Wang Baoshan, who closed the deal for a 5,466 sq ft detached home at 8 Perkins Road, was the spouse of Meitu co-founder Mike Cai Wensheng, as stated in the company’s annual report.
The sale price was 22 percent below the asking price of HK$600 million, according to a real estate agent who deals in luxury properties. The Meity executive was reported recently to have a net worth of US$1.1 billion, according to Forbes.
In the same month, the chairman of a mainland industrial company bought a 6,071 sq ft detached unit in Pokfulam 138, a luxury project of Ryoden Development in Pok Fu Lam, for HK$300 million, as per Land Registry documents. The buyer, Qiu Jianlin, is the chairman of Zhejiang Hengyi Group, a company specializing in petrochemicals and chemical fiber raw materials.
More than 50% of luxury property transactions were made through first-hand sales, while the rest of the individuals who were facing some level of financial distress, including 5 properties undergoing receivership, See mentioned. Receivership refers to the court appointment of individuals who are given the responsibility of managing a property that serves as collateral for a loan.
He added that most of the secondary transactions sellers were involved in the proprietary market or had participated in the market during its peak, resulting in five deals exceeding HK$1 billion. Three of them were new residences at the Mont Verra, located at Beacon Hill in Kowloon Tong, developed by Kerry Properties.
The fourth was a multi-story townhouse with a floor area of 16,700 sq ft, located at 28 Peak Road. It was sold for HK$1.05 billion in October to Zhansheng Network Technology, a subsidiary of a gaming and interactive entertainment platform in China, as noted in Land Registry records. It was previously owned by the Ho Shung-pun family, a low-profile group of real estate developers.
They were also responsible for the fifth billion-plus deal, in which they sold three houses at 46 Plantation Road for HK$1.1 billion to Yeung Kin-man, a manufacturer of smartphone touchscreen technology.
They sold many houses in The Peak for HK$3 billion last year, which were used to repay private loans, as reported by sources. The three properties at Plantation Road were sold to a Hong Kong-listed power tools manufacturer for HK$828 million.
They sold the properties to cover the losses in commercial real estate investment and property-related bonds investments, See stated.
A penthouse, which was the city’s priciest residential building, was sold for HK$512 million. Chen Changwei, the chairman of Hengli Investments, which developed residential and commercial projects in China and managed properties in Hong Kong, London, and on the mainland, sold the properties in the Opus Hong Kong development to Harbour Sky Group for HK$512 million.