HONG KONG – Hong Kong’s recent streak of distressed luxury property sales should persist through the rest of the year, helped by buyers flush with cash, according to Savills brokers. 

The market is dominated by cash-rich buyers who can step in right away to meet the financial needs of sellers and receivers, top executives from the real estate firm said at a media briefing in the city this week.

Hong Kong’s luxury residential market has seen a jump in the sale of homes by individuals who are under financial pressure. High interest rates and a stuttering economy have driven some family owners to offload their assets for as low as half the price before the Covid-19 pandemic, exacerbating the city’s housing slump.  

An example is the sale of four mansions at 46 Plantation Road, which was brokered by Savills. The buyer paid HK$1.1 billion (S$186.7 million) in cash. The houses were among several assets that the seller, the Ho Shung Pun family, had pledged for US$350 million (S$463.1 million) in loans.

“Liquidity is really low, so all our buyers are cash buyers,” Mr Raymond Lee, Savills’ greater China chief executive, said at the briefing. 

Mr Lee and his team have been involved in many of Hong Kong’s major transactions in 2024. In addition to 46 Plantation Road, they include a house that once belonged to China Evergrande Group chairman Hui Ka Yan, and a property at The Peak that sold for HK$838 million.

Values of townhouses have declined by around 30 per cent in the past five years and the transacted prices of super-luxury homes are around 50 per cent below the pre-pandemic peak, the firm said. 

“In the last 30 years, most people who got rich did so through real estate,” said Mr Lee, stressing that the expansion was fuelled by cheap credit.

“The bubble eventually burst.” BLOOMBERG