Ultra Wealthy Snap Up Flats

An average of 17 buyers fought over one flat -- a shoe box in the sky

There are still lots of people in Hong Kong who have gobs of money to spend.

This past weekend Nan Fung Development sold 460 units out of 487 at its LP6 Project in Lohas Park. A total of 8,145 people registered for the sale, which meant an average of 17 buyers fighting over one unit.

Of course the ones with the fattest wallets won.

Ultra-wealthy buyers snapped up multiple flats

The square footage ranged from 307 sq ft for one bedroom to 971 sq ft for three bedrooms, and prices were listed from HK$4.492 million to HK$13.241 million (US$572,252 to US$1.69 million).

But demand raised prices further.

"A handful of buyers wanted to buy four flats for more than HK$28 million each," said Louis Chan, Asia-Pacific vice-chairman and chief executive of the residential division at Centaline Property Agency. "Investors can lease one-bedroom flats at Lohas Park for more than HK$9,000 a month, at a return of about 3 percent."

Wait a second -- more than one buyer wanted to buy four flats, which meant they each paid HK$28 million?

Where did that money come from? I'm obviously not earning enough to play this high-stakes game.

A showroom flat giving a sophisticated atmosphere

Property agents reported a mainland Chinese buyer paid HK$35 million for three of the three-bedroom units, and a single-bedroom studio for investment, and on top of that paid HK$10.5 million in stamp duty, so his total bill was HK$45.5 million.

No wonder Hong Kong tops New York in terms of the number of ultra-wealthy people at just over 10,000 compared to 8,865 in the Big Apple.

The definition of ultra-wealthy -- individuals who are worth at least US$30 million.

The rest of us feel ultra poor...

Do We Need More Bubble Tea?

Customers wait over an hour for bubble tea at Tiger Sugar in Causeway Bay

 Would you wait over an hour for bubble tea?

It's all the craze in Hong Kong which I find bizarre as bubble tea was the drink of the 80s and now it's back again?

This bubble tea shop is social media savvy

Over a month ago a colleague told me about a shop called Tiger Sugar that opened in Causeway Bay and people were willing to wait over an hour for the drink -- even though they were wilting in the heat.

And landlords are greedily rubbing their hands together at the thought of more bubble tea brands coming to the city looking for spaces to rent.

Since July there were 62 different brands of bubble tea in Hong Kong with 282 shops.

Do we really need more?

Apparently the demand is there. These shops just need 250 sq ft to 300 sq ft preferably near schools, offices, where young people hang out like Mongkok, Jordan, Causeway Bay, Central.

And the shops are financially able to afford rents now that they have dropped about 20 percent since the peak in 2014. With rents at around HK$300 to HK$400 per sq ft, that means the total rent could be HK$90,000 to HK$120,000. That's a lot of cups of bubble tea to sell.

People take pictures to show others what they're drinking

What is driving the demand is social media -- people posting pictures of the drinks they have bought, raving about how long they waited and yet the bubble tea was so good. Those looking at the pictures feel like they're missing out.

Not me!

Bubble tea drinks are hardly healthy, as it's the giant tapioca balls are made of starch, which means lots of sugar. No one really finishes all those tapioca balls and even worse the drinks are served in plastic cups with plastic straws. Hardly environmentally friendly.

And we're going to have more bubble tea shops?

This craze is temporary and then many of these shops are going to close down. Then again I might be wrong, but it's definitely breeding a lot of potential diabetics in the future...

Picture of the Day: Red Wallet

How superstitious are you when it comes to your wallet's colour?

During my time window shopping at the Galaxy Macau, there wasn't much to do except wander into the luxury brand shops.

One of my last stops was at Louis Vuitton, a shop I never venture into in Hong Kong because it's so intimidating and the shop assistants are usually snooty.

I asked to see some wallets and they were duly taken out of the cases and carefully explained. Then the salesgirl asked if I was superstitious and I asked why...???

She pointed to the wallet in red and explained Chinese superstition is that one should not have a red wallet because red represents fire and it will burn away all your wealth, or another explanation that red is also the colour of bankruptcy!

So what was that red wallet doing in Louis Vuitton in Macau of all places?

More Victims of Online Scams

One woman gave away a mind boggling US$23 million to a "British engineer"

We are still reading more stories of people being duped from online romance scams.

The latest one this week was a 66-year-old widow who thought her boyfriend was a "British engineer" and needed money for his business. So she gave him HK$180 million! (US$23 million) in four years.

Like seriously? Why give anyone that much money -- and on top of that -- to someone you have NEVER MET IN PERSON?

In 2014 they met on the dating website Lovestruck

It's unbelievable that someone would even do something like that, but she has and now police are investigating.

She met the scam artist online on the online dating website Lovestruck in April 2014 and they apparently struck up a relationship.

"The fraudster claimed he had financial difficulties with his business, and asked the victim for money repeatedly between May 2014 and July this year," police said in a statement.

The victim is described as "wealthy" and is said to run a real estate investment company.

During the four-year period she deposited money into bank accounts in Hong Kong, mainland China, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Britain, and Germany in more than 200 transactions.

Throughout the period the fraudster claimed he would pay her back as soon as the engineering project was finished.

90 percent of women are conned into giving away money

It was only after the widow spoke to her family about it did she realize she was duped.

The police report in the last two months, an average of one report per day was made to the authorities about online love scams. Most victims lost between hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions.

While some of the victims were aware of online scams through the news, they didn't think they themselves were being duped.

"They could not believe they had been scammed because they felt deep in the relationship and did not want to pull out," one source said. The scammers were very good at pretending to be "considerate".

Some skeptical people are starting to think these online romance scams are ways of laundering money, putting it in bank accounts around the world, but then why cry foul about it and get the police involved?

At the same time it's hard to understand why women -- 90 percent of the victims are females -- would be so easily scammed?

There will probably be another victim reported next week...