Hong Kong eclipses London as world’s top luxury property market

The city-state saw a record number of multi-million deals last year, as deep-pocketed Chinese continued to buy up luxury property in spite of heavy stamp duties.

Beijing least affordable city for renting

Christie’s survey reveals that four out of ten homes that sold for over a hundred million dollars last year were in Hong Kong.

“It boiled down to the concentration of world wealth, and there is a significant concentration of billionaires in China. On the risk side of the equation, Hong Kong is more stable than other prime markets,” said Dan Conn, chief executive of Christie’s International Real Estate.

London, which topped the index for the previous four years, dropped to the second spot partially due to tax hikes as well as Brexit-related uncertainty, the report shows.

New York clinched third place, while Los Angeles and Singapore settled in fourth and fifth place.

A significant increase in markets like Hong Kong last year were set against “more turbulent waters witnessed in deep markets like the UK, which had to deal with an election, new taxes from a Conservative government, Brexit and yet another election,” according to Conn.

At the same time, Auckland, New Zealand was overtaken by Canada’s Toronto as the hottest performing prime property market in theLuxury Thermometer ranking that measures the pace of growth. Toronto almost doubled sales of million-dollar-plus homes over the year.