Inside the world of middle-class Hong Kong transnational property investors: ‘5980 miles to my second home’

Abstract

Academic and popular debates around the movement of financial capital tied to the residential housing market in global cities such as London, tend to focus on the super-rich, wealth management and pension funds. While such debates acknowledge that these large scale capital flows influence socioeconomic structures of the destination cities, relatively little is known about how middle-class money flows across national and city boundaries, and between key intermediaries. This article aims to address these empirical and conceptual lacunae by examining the practices of middle-class Hong Kong investors, many of whom have been investing in properties worldwide since the early 1990s. Using ethnographic research and interviews carried out in Hong Kong and the UK, this article sheds light on the investment activity of two groups of middle-class investors: the wealthy middle-class and the aspiring middle-class. The article shows how a wealthy city-state like Hong Kong, with a laissez-faire economy and established international real estate sector, has enabled the outflow of capital to the global housing market. The article also highlights the ability of ethnographic studies to help us look inside processes of transnational housing investment.

Keywords:

• Hong Kong middle-classes
• London
• residential real estate research methods
• second home ownership
• transnational property investment
• UK housing market

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Rowland Atkinson for his input on this research. The author would also like to thank the journal editors and four anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The singular understanding of the middle-class is conceptualised by Lui (2003). For the definition of the middle-classes, see section Buying and financing a property, and the theorisation of the Hong Kong middle-classes.

2 ‘Fry’ is a colloquial Cantonese term that refers to speculate a form of asset for short-term financial gain, see Ho and Atkinson (2018).

3 The exact amount is undisclosed due to confidentiality.

4 As of 2018.

5 See section International real estate investment and Hong Kong society.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council), UK, project number ES/K010263/1, Alpha territoriality in Hong Kong and London: The local implications of transnational real estate investment by the super-rich.