New Kid in Town
Sotheby’s International Realty® opens shop in Hong Kong and seeks to set the bar for luxury house hunting
| Text : Elizabeth Kerr | Photo : Hong Kong Sotheby’s International Realty |
Say “Sotheby’s” and art probably comes to mind immediately. One of the world’s two premier auction houses, Sotheby’s has become synonymous with great art and antiques … and great property. Sotheby’s International Realty® is part of the family of companies headquartered in New York dealing in luxury goods that transcend exclusivity. It’s one thing to own a painting but quite another to have a Picasso in your 16th century Tuscan villa’s salon.
That kind of product is Sotheby’s stock-in-trade, but that’s not to say a phone call to a Sotheby’s office by anyone in the market for an upscale residence is out of the question. In September, Sotheby’s International Realty®(SIR) opened its first office in Hong Kong, and if there are any lingering fears in the luxury market, Julia Pollard, associate director and head of leasing for Hong Kong Sotheby’s International Realty(HKSIR) certainly hasn’t felt it. “My team are flat out … I’m as busy as I’ve ever been,” she says when asked if this is a bad time for SIR to be branching out.
The road to a Hong Kong branch was a long one, as Samson Law, now managing director of HKSIR, explains. “[Sotheby’s] had been looking for an [appropriate franchisee] for a long time. They just didn’t find a good match. It’s not just any old brand.” Law, who is also executive director of Hong Kong Homes (for upmarket residential and office sales and leasing) and Proway (relocation services), had decided it was time for a third branch for his existing businesses. “We wanted to expand but be a niche market player, because you can’t be everything to everyone … We [thought we] either spend the next work with someone else whoalready had a brand.” Enter Sotheby’s. After years of ups and downs, missed phone calls, false starts and lost time, Law was finally granted the franchise in February 2010.
Sotheby’s International Realty® is entering a crowded market at a time some would say is far from ideal. Despite those perceived obstacles, Hong Kong Homes was chosen because local players like Centaline are too mass, lack a larger worldview and can’t match SIR expected level of service and the “right” agencies have their own brands to focus on. As Law sees it, “It’s about time Hong Kong had a specialist that’s worth the fees and the product we’re representing. We believe in service and integrity and this is lacking in the market. If [a client] is paying the same fee, and we’ve given them the same choice and we have the same information as our competitors, who rate lesser on all the other counts, I think there’s market space for us.”
So how does HKSIR expect to distinguish itself from its supposed competitors? “I don’t see competition,” says Pollard, with neither a hint of false modesty nor rancour. “Yes, they are with corporate accounts and signed agreements with banks. But half the time senior executives come to us because they don’t get the level of service or empathy from a local agent that has not lived overseas. And they don’t get the listings. They want to see everything on the market to feel like they’ve been given a good choice.” To that end HKSIR office is staffed by an international team of at least seven different nationalities that speak multiple languages, and includes one agent dedicated to high-end Mainland Chinese property. “It’s part of the service. You have to pay for it, but it’s worth it.” 50 years creating another luxury brand or A natural separation isgoing to come from the available properties, the service HKSIR provides and a vital breadth of knowledge that no one else can touch. “It’s not my style to bang anyone else. It’s an incredibly hard market. Clients have gotten so much more demanding; everyone’s an expert,” Pollard begins by way of explaining just where HKSIR fits. “But I can honestly say we stand out from the crowd … with our database. I can call a building on Old Peak Road and call almost every single ‘A’ unit; we have all the landlords’ details. Since 1995 we’ve been building this database. At any one time we have had an IT team of 10 staff and an agency support team of 10 supporting agents serving the company.”
The database Pollard refers to is the lynchpin and could prove to be HKSIR trump card. The database, she says, allows her to give prospective buyers or renters more information than anyone else. Pollard can break down which units in a given building have no helper’s room, which are owner-occupied, which have two bedrooms, which have expiring leases and so on, proving the credo that knowledge is power and information is the most valuable currency. “I’m gobsmacked at how many clients tell me that no one [makes a few telephone enquiries into a building] for them. And to me itscommon sense.”
HKSIR will be focusing on a range of services including leasing, a key element in Hong Kong leasing right now. HKSIR will be targeted, but not exclusive, to the expatriate house-hunter, and given the financial industry’s rebound in recent months, that’s a market segment likely to stay strong. “Expatriates expect luxury. What is normal to them is luxury here in Hong Kong. They want space — high quality bathrooms and kitchens. That’s normal to people from the United States or Europe or Australia. Think of the old story of supply and demand … there’s just such a demand and not enough supply [in the luxury sector]. On average our most experienced agents house four to five new families every month,” reasons Pollard.
On the sales side of things, Law sees the so-called “trophy transactions” as a bonus to HKSIR’s bread-and-butter leasing services that are likely to continue coming from the Mainland. “Hong Kong is becoming the financial hub for Asia … As the Mainland keeps producing multi-billionaires, they’ll all want to be here. They want their Hong Kong home. It’s like a Manhattan penthouse; like a piece of art, and these places are being collected,” states Law, adding that Sotheby’s properties are the benchmark for the super-rich.
Both Law and Pollard believe that Hong Kong’s property market has plenty to offer Sotheby’s’ cachet. Despite a dearth of sprawling ranches and garden-enveloped villas there’s no lack of mind-boggling apartments. Perhaps, like art, properties that wouldn’t be out of place in Architectural Digest need a forum before they usurp Hong Kong’s admittedly dominant gold lamé interiors (HKSIR is currently finalising the properties that will feature in the Asia Portfolio publication). It could be the vanguard of modern, contemporary elegance. “I hope [HKSIR] can break that barrier,” Pollard concludes. Like Law said: it’s about time.
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