HK Multimillionaires Turning To Overseas Property

Hong Kong dollar multimillionaires are increasingly eyeing up property overseas amid fears prices in the SAR will drop in the coming year, according to a survey by Citibank.

The bank said there were 511,000 people in Hong Kong with fixed assets worth more than HK$10 million in 2018, a three percent rise on the year before.

Property accounted for the bulk of the wealth, but 56 percent of the multimillionaires questioned said they believed flat prices in Hong Kong are on their way down.

Citibank's consumer business manager, Lawrence Lam, said this doesn’t mean the territory's rich are losing confidence in the local property market.

He said they just hope to diversify their assets and are showing a greater interest in buying flats outside Hong Kong and the mainland.

"It's just because the property price is quite high. At the same time, the government's measures on cooling down the market are not having any impact," Lam said.

"If you look at the current portfolio of the multimillionaires, they hold almost 1.9 properties in Hong Kong. So from the perspective of return and diversification, they actually want to look for opportunities outside Hong Kong and mainland China."