Every day for the last three months, dozens of real estate agents have stood outside a subway station in Hong Kong, greeting passersby with big smiles and pamphlets.
Whenever a stout Chinese man sporting a crewcut and a dark-coloured polo shirt walks by, the mood gets tense. “Everyone wants that guy because we can tell he is a mainlander,” says Ryan Chan, one of the agents vying for customers for the Hermitage, a new luxury residential project situated nearby.
The competition between Mr Chan and his rivals for potential Chinese buyers is keen. Over the past few years, affluent mainland investors – benefiting from a booming economy at home and the rising value of the renminbi – have become a new force in the Hong Kong property market. Homes aside, they buy everything from office and retail space to wine, art and even taxi plates – usually in cash. At recent auctions, mainland bidders paid $93,077 for a bottle of 1982 Chateau Pétrus Imperial and $10.7m for a pink diamond ring – both record prices.