Buyers from Hong Kong and mainland China now represent the largest group of international investors in London’s luxury residential real estate market, according to a report Monday from London-based brokerage Beauchamp Estates.
Buyers from the two countries now account for 15% of international buyer transactions priced above £1 million (US$1.22 million) across the city’s prime areas, and 20% of deals above £10 million, overtaking investors from Russia and India who had previously been London’s biggest overseas spenders, the brokerage said.
The report didn’t state what time frame the data covers.
Since December 2019, when the U.K.’s general election delivered a welcome dose of political certainty to domestic and overseas buyers alike, Beauchamp Estates has sold more than £300 million worth of luxury London residential property to Hong Kong buyers in some of the city’s most-coveted neighborhoods, including Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Islington.
Buyers are typically purchasing new homes or historic properties that have newly refurbished super-luxury interiors, Marcus O’Brien, Sales Negotiator at Beauchamp Estates Private Office, said in the report.
According to a separate report from brokerage Aston Chase, demand has been increasing from Hong Kong in particular since the region’s widespread political protests began in March 2019.
Though interest waned at the start of the year and during the peak of London’s coronavirus lockdowns, since the English market resumed operating in recent weeks, inquiry levels from Hong Kong residents has increased by 50%, with buyers eager to make a deal before a possible second wave in coronavirus infections, Aston Chase said.
New security laws in the region that are expected to be introduced by China imminently, and that could curb free speech and protest, are further underpinning demand, according to Mark Pollack, director and co-founder of Aston Chase, as is the U.K.’s announcement that it would potentially offer three million Hong Kong residents British citizenship in response to the new law.
The U.K.’s prime residential market has seen a “remarkable recovery” since the English real estate industry reopened in mid May after spending eight weeks under strict lockdown measures, Mansion Global previously reported.
