Hong Kong’s luxury residential rents are likely to climb another 3 to 5 per cent next year as growing numbers of returning Western expatriates and home-grown professionals drive demand for high-end accommodation, according to Savills.
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Deals were expected to exceed the 660 last year, said Jack Tong, the property consultancy’s director of research. “The outlook remains cautiously positive,” he added.
For next year, Savills expected “stable to gently rising luxury rents as the supply of prime units tightens due to ongoing renovations at top projects”, Tong said. “It is expected that leasing transactions will continue to thrill over the last two months of the year.”
Tong said there were “clear signs of returning expatriate professionals”, especially those relocating from Singapore, Europe and India, while mainland Chinese tenants remained the “backbone of luxury rental”, helped by the government’s top talent recruitment schemes and other initiatives.
The forecast came amid a reinvigorated business environment in the city, with the total number of registered local companies hitting a record 1.5 million as of July, according to official data cited by Centaline Property Agency. Meanwhile, registered non-Hong Kong companies also reached a new high, surpassing 15,000.
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Firms based in the US and Europe have been among the most active in setting up offices in Hong Kong this year. Paris-based private equity firm Ardian opened a 4,000 sq ft office in Central’s Two International Finance Centre late last month and Switzerland’s MKS PAMP, one of the world’s largest refiners and traders of precious metals, unveiled its 3,600 sq ft regional headquarters at St John’s Building on Garden Road in Admiralty earlier this month.