Chapter 1007 The "Tragic" Caused by the Royal Assent Act

On April 12 last year, the British government released a government white paper, announcing that it would revise the nationality law and immigration policy to a certain extent.

Among them, what concerns the people of Xiangjiang the most is that there is an article about the immigration policies of their overseas jurisdictions, which will undergo major changes, further weakening the preferential immigration policies for people in these jurisdictions.

Xiangjiang now belongs to the British overseas jurisdiction.

Just like the Japanese, who have always been worried about living on an island where natural disasters occur frequently, the people in Xiangjiang also have deep concerns about living in this tiny place.

The biggest concern is that the future of Xiangjiang is uncertain.

In 1898, the British forcibly leased Xiangjiang for a period of 99 years. The 99 years would expire in more than ten years.

Will the British return Xiangjiang to China? If not, will China take back Xiangjiang by force? Will Xiangjiang be in ruins due to cross-exchange... These questions have been raised over the years. , has been troubling the people of Xiangjiang.

If you want to say that the poor are fine, then whoever comes here will not give the poor a way to survive, right?

But those with assets, especially the middle class, they panic.

The situations in mainland China in the past few years made them frightened when they heard about it, fearing that their hard-earned money would be confiscated and beaten back to their original shape.

Therefore, the immigration trend in Hong Kong has been prevalent since the 1970s.

In recent years, especially since April last year, this trend has become more and more fierce.

In just over a year, the number of immigrant families in Xiangjiang has exceeded 40,000, and hundreds of thousands of people have left Xiangjiang.

These are not people who are dispensable to Hong Kong, but the real backbone of Hong Kong, all of whom are the middle class and the small rich.

Many factories have also come to a standstill, seriously affecting the economic development of Hong Kong.

To put it bluntly, if it were not for the ferocious real estate development in the past two years, the negative consequences of this economic recession would have already appeared.

However, for the people of Hong Kong, this wave of immigration is definitely not the end, but just the beginning.

Because on the last day of October, that is, October 31, the Queen of the United Kingdom gave her Royal Assent to the British Nationality Act 1981, which officially took legal effect.

There are many changes in it. One that is closely related to Xiangjiang is that residents of Xiangjiang will no longer enjoy any preferential immigration treatment from the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries from the time the bill takes effect. They will all be treated the same as other foreigners. The review treatment can even be said to be more harsh.

According to regulations, this nationality bill officially came into effect on January 1, 1983, which means that from now on, in only 14 months, the people of Hong Kong will be excluded from the category of internal immigrants in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries. .

They can no longer enjoy preferential immigration and other policies.

This shows what?

This shows that Britain is already giving up on Xiangjiang!

Countless people began to panic when they thought that Xiangjiang's mature social system and future might undergo earth-shaking changes.

Even a group of people who had not panicked at all before started to worry.

No matter how the Hong Kong government explains it, MacLehose even came forward to explain it in person and guaranteed that Hong Kong will maintain prosperity and stability, but there is no way to eliminate people's panic.

When the news came, it happened to be November 1st in Xiangjiang, which was Sunday.

And there was no need to wait until the next day, as immigration agencies of all sizes were crowded.

This went on for several days, and all the people who came asked the same question - "How can we immigrate as quickly as possible?"

When the stock market opened on Monday the next day, it immediately plummeted 5.33%. The unstoppable plunge of various indexes was even more severe than the previous two times that suppressed housing prices.

Even the stock of Jardine Matheson, the most stable company in Hong Kong, could not withstand the plunge, which shows that investors are worried about the future of Hong Kong.

Such a plunge in the stock market has once again greatly affected the mentality of the people.

Almost 80% of those who have some money and ability in their families are thinking of immigrating to some extent.

There are still preferential policies for immigrants now, but after more than a year, you will have no choice but to immigrate!

Especially the middle class who are stuck by the new nationality law and are just below the standard want to get immigration done as soon as possible.

Some people think very simply. After I apply for immigration, if I live abroad for enough time, won’t it be the same when I come back?

This gives you an extra layer of protection for your identity!

Amid these disturbing thoughts, the current situation in Xiangjiang these days has become a mess.

Not only is the stock market continuing to fall, but the property market, which was unstable some time ago, has also begun to fall.

Small real estate companies started cutting prices on the day the nationality law came out.

It's just that they have been selling houses at reduced prices before, so they didn't attract much attention.

Next, the instability of medium and large real estate companies was the real shock.

Among the medium and large real estate companies, the first one to be unable to hold on was Dah Chong Real Estate. The price of a new property they opened in Yau Ma Tei on the 5th dropped directly by 100 yuan per square foot to 1,200 yuan per square foot. The price of second-hand houses in the same area was The house price is around 1,200, which is similar to their new house.

Then there is Great Eagle Properties. One of their properties in the East Tsim Sha Tsui area also fell by 12%.

The third one to respond was the Hang Lung Group, one of the top five real estate companies in Xiangjiang.

After acquiring 34% of Taohua Datong shares from Yin Jun in May last year, Hang Lung Group, which holds a land reserve as large as Ngau Tou Kok, has only launched two phases so far, launching more than 1,300 houses. The rate is less than 15%.

They originally thought of waiting until house prices rose again before slowly launching houses in order to maximize profits.

Unexpectedly, we have encountered setbacks in the general environment in the past two months, so we have been refraining from opening new listings.

Now that they see this situation, they are a little unsettled, and have set the price of the third phase at about 950 per square foot, which is almost the same as the second phase of 930 per square foot.

The second phase of 930 per square foot was opened three months ago!

In the past three months, land prices in Xiangjiang have increased by more than 10%. Some properties that were launched last month are in worse locations than Ngau Tau Kok, but the prices have soared to 1,000.

But Hang Lung Group has no choice.

All their money was tied up in the previous land, and they still needed to raise a large amount of money to the Xiangjiang Metro Company as a deposit for bidding on the properties above the nine subway entrances. In the end, their son-in-law sold some of his shares to raise funds. He spent 500 million in cash to buy a building in Central for Yin Jun, which was another huge expense.

Money is being used everywhere, so it is natural that it should be open sourced.

The land in Ngau Tou Kok was their largest and most valuable land, so of course they had to focus on it.

Originally they expected the price to be 1,100 yuan per square foot.

However, in the past few days, the new nationality law in the UK has been enacted. Now everyone's confidence is gone. Seeing that the property market is going to decline, they finally couldn't help it and lowered the price significantly. Close to 10%, and nearly 1,000 houses were released, almost more than the previous two openings.

Even the top five players like Hang Lung Group couldn't bear the price cuts, and public opinion in Xiangjiang was in an uproar.

Ming Pao even published "The beginning of the plummeting housing prices in Hong Kong?" "Home page title like this.

Almost all newspapers are predicting that due to the continuous suppression by HSBC and the government, and the British Nationality Law that has greatly accelerated the immigration rate of wealthy people, the number of houses in Xiangjiang will increase in the next few years. It won't be an easy sell at all.

The supply and demand market inherently interacts with each other. Once the demand side continues to decrease, the supply side will definitely be unable to support it, leading to a big crash.

You have to say that what people in Xiangjiang like to buy most is houses.

Even in such a precarious situation, even though everyone expected that housing prices would fall, they suddenly saw that the prices of the houses of these developers had generally been reduced by 8%-15%, and they were suddenly unsettled. I felt that this price reduction It’s almost there. If you don’t buy it, maybe it will go back up after a while?

It's not like there weren't examples like this in the past. In the two years from 1978 to 1979, this kind of situation often happened in Xiangjiang's property market, which made those home buyers dumbfounded.

The mentality of home buyers is very subtle. Whether you say they are irrational or not, buying a home is an impulse.

So at this time, everyone once again saw the eagerness of Chinese people to buy a house.

On November 1st, the transaction volume of second-hand and new houses in Xiangjiang was 321 units, the lowest of the year.

There were 338 units on the 2nd, but it immediately dropped to 305 units on the 3rd, 280 units on the 4th, and 273 units on the 5th, continuing to hit the lowest number of the year.

But on the 6th, as Hang Lung Group joined the wave of price cuts, the situation suddenly reversed.

The transaction volume on the 6th exceeded 400 units in one breath, and it soared directly to 528 units on the 7th. The high temperature continued on the 8th, reaching 629 units! On the 9th, it directly rose to the 700 mark, reaching 702 sets!

Such data that keeps fluctuating and reversing makes people a little confused for a while.

Many commentators who had previously shouted that "Hong Kong house prices will continue to plummet to the level of 1978 because no one is buying and everyone is holding on to the sidelines" were also speechless!

What is going on?

Where do so many people come from? In such a severe environment, how can anyone have so much money to buy a house?

Aren’t the rich people already preparing to evacuate Xiangjiang? ?