Hong Kong protests continue to dampen investor confidence in city’s property market, but London to rebound quickly: Christie’s
- ‘If you bought in Hong Kong two years ago, and you had to be a seller today, yeah, you probably have a little bit of indigestion,’ says Dan Conn, chief executive of Christie’s International Real Estate
- Prices in London will rebound quickly
London and Hong Kong, two premier financial hubs, have been stifled by ongoing political tension. But for real estate, the cities face different futures, according to the property arm of the world’s largest auction house.
Prices in London, suppressed in part as the UK grapples with Brexit, will rebound quickly, said Dan Conn, chief executive of Christie’s International Real Estate. But improvement is far less certain in Hong Kong, after more than five months of violent protests, he said.
The three-year fight over Brexit may be coming to a head with the December 12 general election. Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson is gambling an election will finally give him the numbers in parliament to push through Britain’s often-delayed divorce from the European Union.
His rival, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, could put the whole thing to a second referendum, though he is trailing badly in polls. The EU has granted a three-month Brexit delay to January 31.
Conn likes London because the UK market has been “hammered” for years, offering deals in what he calls a “great market”. Home prices in London’s most expensive districts have declined by 20.4 per cent since their peak in 2014, according to broker Savills. Brexit has also weighed on pricing, with values down 13.6 per cent since the referendum vote, the broker’s data show.
“It’s depressed – it has the potential to come back relatively quickly,” Conn said in an interview in New York. “If you’re a buyer now, you can take advantage of the last four or five years that have been not so great.”