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Hong Kong property
Business

Coronavirus Hong Kong: luxury property awaits Shenzhen border opening for the next leap upwards

  • Property buyers from mainland China bought 38 per cent of Hong Kong’s luxury homes – each more than HK$100 million – in the first four months
  • At two of Hong Kong’s most exclusive addresses, 21 Borrett Road and Mount Nicholson, “new Hongkongers” already make up more than half the owners

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The Mount Nicholson project at The Peak on Hong Kong Island on June 26, 2019, where 58 per cent of the 15 mansions and 38 luxury apartments are owned by mainland Chinese buyers. Photo: Martin Chan
Sandy Li

An influx of mainland Chinese buyers into Hong Kong’s super-deluxe developments since early this year could further fuel home prices in the world’s most expensive property market, and the trend will become more obvious once the border open.

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Buyers who settled in Hong Kong from mainland China, dubbed “new Hongkongers” unlike locally born residents, have already made their presence felt in the local real estate market. They bought 38 per cent of Hong Kong’s luxury homes – each priced more than HK$100 million (US$13 million) – in the first four months, 2 percentage points more than the whole of 2020, and more than 32.9 per cent in 2019, according to data provided by Midland Realty.

“When the border reopens, we expect mainland Chinese to [return] to snap up residential property,” said Avan Pau, senior director of investment property & private office capital markets at CBRE Hong Kong.

Individual and corporate real estate investors from the mainland had been the lifeblood that had sustained the eye-popping prices of Hong Kong’s property industry in the past decade, from multimillion dollar mansions to some of the world’s most expensive offices in marquee addresses in Central. Their presence in the city, muted since the street protests of 2019, could resume when Hong Kong’s northern border with Shenzhen reopens with the easing of the coronavirus outbreak, allowing business travellers, tourists and investors to return.
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New Hongkongers already make up 60 per cent of the owners in two of the city’s most exclusive residential neighbourhoods: CK Asset Holdings’ 21 Borrett Road luxury apartments at the Mid-Levels, as well as Mount Nicholson on The Peak by Wharf Holdings and Nan Fung Development, according to land title searches conducted by South China Morning Post.

Mainland Chinese buyers snapped up four of eight apartments at 21 Borrett Road since February, paying a total of HK$1.3 billion for them, including a buyer named Yin Xi who paid HK$459.4 million for a five-bedroom unit that broke Asia’s price record.
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