Hong Kong's tycoons are selling trophy homes at fire sale prices

Collapse of China's real estate market forces many to sell prized properties

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One by one, tycoons who built their wealth on China's economic rise have been giving up their trophy homes in Hong Kong.

Two apartments in a Frank Gehry glass-and-steel tower that twists out of the mountainside. Three European-style mansions with turrets and swimming pools. Four white villas sitting in a row.

All but two of the properties have already sold for tens of millions of dollars each. And while it might be hard to believe, each one was a steal - snatched up for discounts of one-third to more than half of the previous values.

For nearly 20 years, property prices have climbed higher and higher, turning it into one of the most unaffordable cities in the world, where the poor rented subdivided apartments so small they were colloquially known as "coffin homes".

Now, many of the same people who contributed to the housing market's inequities, from the builders to the wealthy speculators, have found themselves being forced to sell their prized homes fast. Their riches had swelled with an unfathomable rise in China's real estate market, and its collapse and aftermath have left many short on cash.

Most notable among them is Mr Hui Ka Yan of the one-time property giant China Evergrande. Creditors seized his European-style homes, which were collectively worth more than US$190 million (S$253 million), after the company collapsed. One of them sold in 2024 for US$58 million, less than half of the US$130 million that a company tied to Evergrande and Mr Hui had paid for it in 2009, according to the global real estate firm Knight Frank.

A Hong Kong court ordered China Evergrande to liquidate in 2024, setting off a search by its foreign investors who were owed money for anything that could be sold off. The Chinese authorities took Mr Hui away in 2023 and accused him and Evergrande of fraud.