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Direct Property Group's eye-catching website. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The Direct Property Group has aroused my curiosity. Their eye-catching advertisements for overseas property appear on BBC TV channels, in newspapers and in magazines. Some are for bargain USA homes, others for upmarket pads in Europe. They look for all the world like an estate agent, but a search of their website, www.directpropertygroup.com for details of the glamorous properties on offer in places like London, France and the USA yields little. It says, for example: Notting Hill, W11, two bedrooms, pounds 1,150,000, (HK$14.4 million) with no address. You can find handsome interior shots and smart exteriors, but all of unidentified buildings. On the USA site, no listings appear at all. At the bottom of the homepage a disclaimer states:
 

Not licensed here

“Our property consultants deal exclusively with overseas properties in Hong Kong, and are not required to be licensed under the Estate Agents Ordinance of the Hong Kong SAR. Offers contained herein are not applicable to purchasers located in the United Kingdom, Australia or United States of America.” This raises several points: why, if they operate here, are they not subject to Hong Kong estate agent laws? And secondly, why are they selling UK, European and US property to Hong Kong buyers, but not to purchasers in those countries? Surely there would be demand for bargains back home too?  Then it goes on to say that photographs, plans and promotional material provided by Direct Property staff, “are intended for general information purpose only.” But surely, anyone about to shell out a million quid for a London pad wants specific particulars.
 

Strictly no interviews

And that’s all I can glean from the website. So I contact one of their Hong Kong chaps, Lain Brand, requesting a chat about their company and the market, expecting the usual eager response of an estate agent scenting free publicity. Meanwhile, an internet check finds little, except Asiaxpat and Geoxpat discussion forums. In May, someone posed a similar question on both sites, asking had anyone bought from this company. “They are having many TV adverts and one of them offers six US properties for $200k (HK$1.55 million). Is it a scam?” they wonder.  “Not a scam,” someone else replies. “But they're usually properties in areas nobody wants due to high unemployment/high crime areas etc, tenants on benefits etc.”

Now that might possibly be the case for the American properties, but the London and Lake Como places they are promoting are high end, so that doesn’t quite make sense. I read another online reply of several:

“Not a scam in that the houses are most likely there,” replies another reader. “These guys have been operating in Hong Kong for a while (original focus was London), but when I met with them they explained that their business model was to buy the properties themselves and then resell to you. By the time you factor in the transaction costs and their profit margin, I drew the conclusion that the only way for them to make money was to resell to me at well above market value. I lost interest at that point.”
 

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