Bloomberg: Hong Kong more than 16,000 families to move to Britain in a year to sell properties to cash 150 billion Hong Kong dollars

Bloomberg: More than 10,000 families in Hong Kong moved to Britain this year.

The Chinese Communist Party’s push for a “Hong Kong state security law” in Hong Kong, coupled with a major setback in democracy, has led to an unabated wave of emigration from Hong Kong. A Bloomberg Intelligence report says that by 2021, Hong Kong could have between 13,100 and 16,300 families moving to the UK on their British National (Overseas) visas (BNOs). This figure represents between 0.9 and 1.1 percent of households living in private homes. When Hong Kong people move to the UK, owners may sell up to HK$150 billion (US$19.3 billion) worth of real estate. (By Derek Fong)

The British government’s plan to make it easier for Hong Kong residents with BNO status to gain citizenship has prompted a rise in immigration numbers and in the number of buildings sold. The number of properties put up for sale by Centaline Property, Hong Kong’s largest real estate agency, rose 44 percent from a year earlier to more than 40,000 units.

But Bloomberg stressed that this is not to say that Hong Kong’s property market will soon be in trouble. Buyers, including those from mainland China, are taking advantage of this increased supply to keep sweeping up. The value of second-hand property sales is expected to reach a 23-year high of HK$50 billion in April, an indicator of buoyant market activity, according to Centaline Property.

The report highlighted that property prices in Hong Kong have remained firm, with prices currently only 5.4 percent below the historical peak set for mid-2019. This is because mortgage rates have fallen to their lowest level in more than a decade, greatly increasing buyers’ appetite for entry. Bloomberg forecasts that secondary property prices will increase by 5 to 10 percent this year.

An increasing number of mainland Chinese are buying homes in Hong Kong, with Chinese customers accounting for 11 percent of purchases in the first quarter, up from 8.7 percent in the third quarter, according to a survey by Midland Realty.