The property market may have slowed down in some areas but at the top end prices continue to boom, Helen Dalley reports

 

 

The number of the world’s super rich – increasingly referred to as High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) expanded by 4.5 percent last year – that is, those people with investable assets of more than US$1 million excluding primary residence. China’s HNWI population is now 373,000, which is almost as many as in Germany (375,000), according to the 2008 Wealth Report compiled by Citi Private Bank and Knight Frank.

These uber-wealthy individuals are seemingly immune to the financial woes the rest of the world is facing, and when it comes to property they don’t need to worry about applying for a mortgage or loans - they simply pay upfront.

Global prime properties rose by 11 percent in 2007, and prices of super-prime houses in London are up 16.7 percent on last year. Beijing saw an increase in prices of 5.6 percent in the prime market over the last quarter of 2007 and in the rest of Asia, things are also booming at the top tier. Units in new luxury apartment complexes in Kuala Lumpur, such as OneKL and the Troika, for example, are almost sold out, even though they are still under construction.

In Hong Kong, it’s a similar success story at the high-end of the market. China’s booming economy and the city’s proximity to the biggest concentration of manufacturing activity in the world in the Pearl River Delta, is keeping prices bouyant.

Barclays Wealth Bulletin’s recent global survey of the top 10 most expensive residential streets put Severn Road on the Peak (HK$87,012 per square foot) as the second priciest in the world, behind Avenue Princess Grace in Monaco (HK$137,891 per square foot). But that’s not putting prospective prime buyers off. A billionaire mainland Chinese businessman recently bought a 3,358-square-foot apartment here for HK$295 million.

A semi-detached house on Black’s Link, a 4,750-square-foot triplex, is currently going for HK$210 million, and another on the market at the Severn 8 development (3,300 square foot) hopes to fetch HK$160 million, or over HK$48,000 per square foot.

Peak rentals remain pricey too, coming in at around HK$78,000 per month for a 1,600-square-foot flat in Kellet Heights, and topping out at HK$380,000 per month for a 6,000-square-foot property on 21 Severn Road.

 

It’s not just the Peak that’s grabbing all the headlines, however. Investor interest is secure on the South-side, and in the best parts of Kowloon, the market is also on the up and up. At exclusive complex The Arch, in Tsim Sha Tsui, an investor paid HK$225 million this June for a 5,497-square-foot, 80-floor penthouse with a private swimming pool.

 

This hefty transaction makes the apartment the most expensive ever sold in Asia per square foot, and deftly illustrates, that the super-prime sector is still soaring as high as Hong Kong’s skyscrapers.