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On the twenty eighth floor of the Jardine owned Mandarin Oriental Hotel, in Central, the heart of Hong Kong, a Chinese investor and his wife listened attentively as Sarah Kavanagh of Gutherie Plimpton’s took them on a virtual tour of an upmarket property development for sale in London.
The investor was one of the many cash-rich mainland Chinese who was taking the precaution of spreading his bets. Many feared the Chinese property market had started to resemble that of the US in the period leading up to the sub-prime crash. It was why the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the People’s Bank of China had taken steps to cool the market, triggering a rush for alternative assets overseas to protect newly found wealth.
The event was part of a campaign launched by Guthrie Plimpton to promote prime London property in China. Sarah Kavanagh was hosting the weekend venue designed to provide prospective buyers with an introduction to homes abroad, notably in London, Marbella, Cannes and Dominica, with INI Hong Kong offering buyers its services for setting up accounts, financing, transfers and legal assistance.
The properties proposed included Gould’s Cheyne Walk development, for which Sarah proposed a visit to London, offering serious buyers from Guangzhou, Shanghai and Chongqing accommodation in a first class hotels accompanied by a Chinese speaking guide to visit its properties.
Purchases by Mainland Chinese had accounted for over forty percent of new luxury home sales in Hong Kong. That is until the Special Administrative Region imposed a fifteen percent tax on foreigners, meaning Mainland buyers, which had the effect of pushing investors into the arms of real estate firms like Gutherie Plimpton that offered buyers overseas alternatives, notably London.
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