Calling all billionaires
Updated: 2013-10-18 08:37
By Albert Lin(HK Edition)
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Prices for homes in the city's most desirable locations now have would-be purchasers' jaws positively agape. Forget tens of millions and instead think at least 100 million if, for example, you're seeking the cream of what's on offer among the most luxurious residential properties.
Furthermore, it's no use going to an agent to inquire about buying one of these "gems" of stone, brick, marble and mortar - most sales today are being conducted amid conditions of ultra-secrecy and involve solely vendor and purchaser. A condition of each deal is that secrecy is paramount, and identities and addresses are not to be made known to others. Total security is an important factor in every deal because the amounts involved are so mind-boggling, and criminals invariably follow the money trail.
Ho hum, you say, I've never harbored a desire to live on The Peak and am quite happy with our humble two-story villa overlooking the bay at Pok Fu Lam.
Excuse me, Sir, but we're not talking about The Peak, or anywhere else in Hong Kong for that matter. You have your head in the clouds of Barker Road, Mount Austin Road, Peak Road and Lugard Road. The situation we describe is taking place right now in the most exclusive districts of London, and that amount we quoted of at least 100 million refers not to Hong Kong dollars but to British pounds - yes, the cream of the crop in London is now changing hands at more than 100 million pounds ($160 million), or a tick or two over a billion Hong Kong!
Yes, yes, you say ... but aren't we forgetting last year's sale of a property in Barker Road on The Peak at HK$68,228 per square foot - which came to a tidy total of HK$1.8 billion?
Sir, you probably believe that Hong Kong property prices are right "over the top" and completely out of kilter with the rest of the world, but just read on and see what's happening in the British capital. Furthermore, you'll be interested to know that - as in Hong Kong - prices are constantly being pushed up by a seemingly bottomless gusher of money from non-local buyers.
Latest estimates are that 85 percent of current purchases of high-priced residential properties in London are being made by billionaires from overseas, the nearest from France, a few others from Russia, and the farthermost from oil-rich Gulf countries or from such prosperous Asian countries as Malaysia. Super-rich French families are selling up in Paris and moving to London to escape the feared punitive exactions of a new government apparently hell-bent on "punishing" the wealthy with draconian taxes.
On the other hand, Arabian sheikhs think it would be amusing to run a colt or two in next June's Derby, and as a result require suitable "digs" convenient to Epsom Downs Racecourse. Meanwhile, a handful of Malaysian money-bags who went to university in Britain seemingly yearn to return to the scene of their youthful escapades a few decades ago.
Run-of-the-mill English millionaires can no longer fight off the temptation to cash in their properties at the ever-increasing property values and have mostly sold up and moved out of elite residences comfortably tucked away across London's prestigious "Golden Triangle" (London, Oxford and Cambridge).
Nor would we like to be associated with a recent vulgar transaction in Chelsea where some utter cad purchased a car wash business lock, stock and barrel, and within weeks had the site completely cleared and builders laying the foundations for a two-story gentleman's residence. Unbelievable!
The Guardian newspaper recently carried a feature article headlined "London property boom leaves super rich scratching around for a new pad". The report begins: "You know how it is - you've got the equivalent of 30-50 million pounds ($47.8-$79.7 million) to spend on a home, and you can't find a thing that's suitable. That's the bizarre predicament in which the global super-wealthy now find themselves as a result of the boom in London's super-prime property market."
Indeed it can be extremely frustrating. Take the case of Eric Schmidt, the billionaire chairman of Google, just one of many trying to find a suitable home for over 30 million pounds, but who is still looking. Though he is not regarded as a "fussy buyer", the entrepreneur is understood to have enlisted the help of a good friend of Prince William to discreetly open a few doors in Chelsea and Holland Park, and so perhaps is finally locked in secret negotiations with a crusty old Etonian who doesn't want the neighbors to know he's cashing in on the boom.
If you're still interested in a London buy, one "unmodernized" property in the "Golden Triangle" is still on one agent's books at $65 million. Its drawback is the primitive Victorian-style plumbing and archaic bathrooms and associated facilities. Scarcely fit for a billionaire!
The author is Op-Ed editor of China Daily Hong Kong Edition. albertlin@chinadailyhk.com
(HK Edition 10/18/2013 page9)