Overseas Property Exhibitions in Asia Hit Covid High

A bit of a long update this week - lots happening and a number of trends to report on, including a few predictions for the coming weeks and months. All the data referenced in this update can be found in Soho's Overseas Property Intelligence PRO subscription, which is 100% interactive and also allows you to search for channel agents.

Incase you missed the Year So Far Report for Overseas Property Exhibitions - send me a message or leave a comment - it's 28 pages packed with what has been happening in 2020 for overseas property in Asia.

Highest Combined Exhibitions

46 Exhibitions were recorded across HK, SG & KL for the week - the highest since Covid first showed up (mid Jan had a combined 49 exhibitions), further showing that appetite is there.All three have exhibitions again this week and this trend should continue for the next few months as Hong Kong climbs again to have 43 exhibitions - it's highest since mid June and equal 3rd highest number of exhibitions for 2020. Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are slowly coming back and are being driven by UK & AU exhibitions.

Tis the Season

We've now entered the traditional New Launch Period. It hasn't disappointed, with a number of new launches across the region for UK, Australia, Canadian, Thai, Japanese and Vietnamese projects. We should continue to see this throughout September and in October with exhibitions hovering in the high 30s, early 40s each week.

A Return of Non-UK

There has been an increase in the number of non-UK projects in Hong Kong over the last 6-8 weeks and the week just gone was the highest selection of non-UK projects since mid July. Australia was best of the rest with 6 exhibitions, followed by Japan & Thailand with 4. Rounding up the exhibitions was Malaysia & Canada, each contributing 3 exhibitions to the totals. I feel that as the UK has reached saturation point, this share will increase over the next couple of months. Non-UK exhibitions in Singapore should also start to make a comeback.In the weeks to come, I'm expecting a number of new project launches across the region.

Still 50%+ for UK property

The UK still held 50% of all exhibitions in Hong Kong. However, as alluded to above, it feels this may dip below 50% in the next few weeks, due to a number of reasons:

1. Saturation - the same projects are appearing week after week, and in some cases at multiple exhibitions in one week.
2. Other locations are still sought after. We saw the the same trend with Malaysia property last - after a couple of months of very high exhibition numbers, the initial frenzy subsided as agents switched back to their speciality. It's hard imagine given how much attention UK property
3. Some agents aren't getting results. Most Agents that have a background in UK property have been selling the most they've ever sold. A lot of other agents only started selling UK property as demand increased. I'm now seeing an abandoning of this by some agents to return to their signature offerings.

Having said this... UK projects were at a record high of number of exhibitions (23) over the weekend. Though the % of all exhibitions is at its lowest point in two months. I'm not saying that demand for UK property will decrease - it still has a good run ahead of it in Asia for the next six months or so at least.

Hotels Are Well and Truely Back

In another sign of the strengthening market, more and more exhibitions are taking place in hotels, as opposed to in-house sales suites. However, there's still a requirement for guests to register ahead of time and 1-1 consulting. There's no reason why this shouldn't continue and we should see further easing in the coming months.

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