Mixed in 1980

Chapter 357 Coming in droves
"Old Li, you've been making some rather big moves lately!" Guo Desheng approached Li Zhaoji, expressing his strong dissatisfaction with Li Zhaoji's actions.

The two jointly established Sun Hung Kai Properties. During this period, Li Zhaoji followed Chen Fan in selling off properties, which curbed the development of the property market and damaged everyone's common interests.

“Old Guo, house prices are already quite high. Selling now would yield a good profit, especially since I’m only selling a second-hand house,” Li Zhaoji said dismissively.

The properties he was selling were not from Sun Hung Kai Properties, but from his own company. Sun Hung Kai Properties has always been dominated by the Kwok family.

Guo Desheng naturally understood that buying and selling were free, but the market didn't operate that way: "Old Li, we've been working together since 58, we've been friends for decades, can you give me a hint?"

"What bottom line?" Li Zhaoji touched his nose.

Guo Desheng retorted with dissatisfaction: "Come on, everyone knows that your Hengsheng shareholders are all in sync. What are your motives?"

"It's just a strategy of exchanging old houses for new ones, what motive is there? You also own quite a few second-hand houses, haven't you thought about exchanging them for new ones?" Li Zhaoji smiled slightly.

The strategy to suppress the housing market is something even his own son doesn't know, so how could he possibly tell outsiders?

Only the number of people who attended the meeting knew about it, as everyone had signed confidentiality agreements, and the mainland authorities were keeping a close eye on it.

Chen Fan's secrecy was equally strict; only Zhou Wenya and Yu Jing knew about Xinghuo Investment, and even Ma Xifeng, the general manager of Xinghuo Real Estate, was unaware.

As for Guo Desheng, friendship is friendship, but leaking secrets is absolutely unacceptable. Li Ka-shing had asked him before, but he never revealed a single detail.

"Is it really that simple?" Guo Desheng frowned.

Li Zhaoji took out a cigarette and offered one to him: "Houses have a limited lifespan. Isn't it better to replace the old one with a new one?"

As he spoke, he lit up a lamp for himself: "Besides, we're in the real estate business to make money. Prices are good right now, so we should cash out as much as we can."

It was clear that Li Zhaoji was hiding something.

But he couldn't get him to talk, so he had no choice but to chat for a while before saying goodbye and leaving. After getting into his car, he frowned.

What exactly is Li Zhaoji hiding?
They weren't afraid of anything else, but they were afraid that Chen Fan would target the real estate market, even though doing so wouldn't benefit Chen Fan, the top real estate developer.

As the car drove along the road, Guo Desheng pondered for a long time before instructing the driver to turn around and head to Deep Water Bay, directly to Li Ka-shing's house.

The two started talking about the housing market.

A moment later, Li Ka-shing smiled wryly: "In the early stages of our development, HSBC provided a lot of support. In Chen Fan's eyes, we are pro-British."

"It's just business, but he's already convinced that he can't get into their circle at all."

“I had previously wanted to acquire a portion of Hang Seng’s shares at a premium and join Hang Seng’s board of directors, but Spark Investment simply did not agree.”

Guo Desheng smiled wryly and said, "There's nothing we can do. Chen Fan has too deep a grudge against the British. There's no point in talking about this. Let's discuss the next strategy."

"Should we follow, or not?"

Upon hearing this, Li Ka-shing took out a cigarette, lit it, and pondered for a moment: "I plan to follow suit, on a small scale. If Chen Fan has no ulterior motives, I'll just earn less."

"If there's a conspiracy, we can avoid losses; in short, we won't earn the last penny."

"Then let's go with it!" Guo Desheng said with a wry smile.

Li Zhaoji hadn't said it explicitly before, but he had already made it clear that there was nothing wrong with exchanging the old for the new.

As a result, the number of second-hand homes listed for sale has increased significantly.

Real estate tycoons were unhappy, but ordinary property speculators were excited. After 1985, it wasn't that houses in Hong Kong couldn't be sold, but that they couldn't be bought.

With the housing market booming, buying now is a sure way to make a profit.

"Honey, the real estate agent called. Should we go take a look?" Zhou Xiaoying asked, linking her arm with her husband's, a slight smile playing on her lips.

Zheng Shusen didn't hesitate: "Let's take a look. If the price is right, we'll buy it. Buying it is a win."

The two quickly went to the real estate agency and looked at several apartments in Central. After some haggling, they finally bought two apartments.

One unit is 72 square meters, and the other is 30 square meters.

The price of houses in the core area has risen to 7500 per square foot, and the two houses together will cost nearly 800 million.

Zheng Shusen is very generous, paying the full amount upfront. He's not quite comfortable with taking out a loan to buy a house.

On the one hand, I'm not used to owing too much money, and on the other hand, the interest rates are too high. Plus, I've made a lot of money over the years, so I have just enough cash on hand.

Many people from mainland China are coming here to buy property!

Especially in recent years, Zheng Shusen has heard many colleagues in the import and export business circle say that they made a lot of money by buying houses in Hong Kong.

Many colleagues say that what you earn in a year isn't even as much as the increase in housing prices. If you have money and don't buy a house in Hong Kong, you're a fool.

At first, Zheng Shusen didn't take it seriously.

How do you explain the drop in housing prices last year? But at the end of last year, the housing market began to rebound, quickly returning to the level of 93, and Zheng Shusen finally couldn't hold back any longer.

You can't just buy a house whenever you want.

Hong Kong's property market is so hot that you need to enter a lottery to buy a house. If you want to buy a new house, you need to have a number. There are even people selling "scalped numbers" on the market.

A qualification to buy a house costs tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars, or even hundreds of thousands.

"Liu, you've been selling off pretty aggressively lately." Chen Fan specially invited Liu Jianxiong to his home for dinner. Among his business partners, Liu Jianxiong was the most ruthless; in a short time, he had already sold off nearly half of his properties.

Liu, smoking a cigarette and crossing his legs, said, "Among our group, I started my business the latest and own the least amount of property. Consider it my contribution to the fight for everyone."

Da Liu has a bandit-like air about him, but he's also very loyal.

Chen Fan also appreciated this favor: "We can sell off the rest gradually. As long as we keep the average price below 7000 this year, that's fine."

"Seven thousand? That's a bit difficult!"

Liu took a drag of his cigarette and shook his head slightly: "If we hadn't controlled the price, it would have surged to HK$7000 within a month. I'll sell off another batch in a few days."

Seeing this, Chen Fan did not object.

When we reap the rewards in Southeast Asia, we can make up for it. Compared to other allies, Liu's real estate projects are indeed fewer.

However, Liu has a lot of cash.

He has already sold off more than half of the assets he seized from the former Soviet Union, and he received at least $20 billion in cash, without losing a single penny of what was rightfully his.

He made a considerable profit from his exploitation of England and Mexico.

Liu Jianxiong was returning the favor; he had made a lot of money following Chen Fan, and now that Chen Fan was about to do something big, he should be the one to charge into battle.

The same goes for Hua Sanshao!
The Zhao family is following the same pace as everyone else, but Hua Sanshao's personal properties are also being sold off on a large scale recently, with almost no effort spared.

After taking a drag of his cigarette, Da Liu said, "There's another matter. Funds from Singapore are starting to enter the market on a large scale. They even wanted to acquire my company before."

"They've come from over there too?" Chen Fan asked in surprise.

Lau rolled his eyes: "How novel! Sino Group is Singapore's capital, and it's one of the top real estate companies in Hong Kong."

After thinking for a moment, he added, "If it weren't for Xinghuo Real Estate taking away too much land and restricting their development, Sino Land would be among the top four in Hong Kong. Now they are already sharpening their knives."

Chen Fan was disappointed; he really hadn't paid attention!
Liu was both amused and exasperated. Hong Kong's top real estate developer didn't even understand the Hong Kong real estate landscape. It was truly baffling how he had managed to grow so large and powerful.

All I can say is that choice is more important than effort.

Chen Fan simply acquired a large amount of land in 84, which naturally made him the largest land supplier.

Lau continued, "There's too much capital flowing into Hong Kong now, and some Hong Kong capital is going abroad to invest. The Cheng family has their eye on a piece of land in the United States."

"They're currently in talks to acquire a real estate developer called 'Tekapo,' who's already in Hong Kong and looks like he's about to go bankrupt."

"Which one?" Chen Fan asked curiously.

"Golden Retriever, Old Trump!"

Chen Fan chuckled. The Zheng family made money from this deal, but having such a partner had caused them a lot of headaches.

Initially, the Zheng family took a liking to a 77-acre plot of land in the United States. After learning that the land belonged to Golden Retriever, they invited him to Hong Kong for talks.

With the Golden Retriever on the verge of bankruptcy, it naturally came running over eagerly. In the end, the Zheng and Luo families joined forces to invest 9000 million US dollars to buy 70% of the project's equity.

Subsequently, the Zheng and Luo families invested several hundred million US dollars in development projects.

Eleven years later, the project was a great success, the Golden Retriever recovered, successfully avoided bankruptcy, and turned his fortunes around.

At the time, the Zheng and Luo families predicted that the US housing market had peaked, so they sold the project and cashed out $17.6 billion. The German also received $5 million.

The Zheng and Luo families, if not benefactors to Jinmao, certainly helped him a great deal. However, after the project was sold, Jinmao sued both families.

The reason is simple: the man believes he sold it too cheaply and should have sold it for an additional $10 billion, and he is demanding that the Zheng and Luo families compensate him for his losses.

The court ruled that he was being unreasonable.

That's so golden retriever-like!

Having such a partner is a real headache for the Zheng and Luo families. Being a "reliable" partner doesn't mean accepting a court ruling; it means facing a series of lawsuits.

I'll disgust you to death!
Shaking his head, Chen Fan changed the subject: "The British are getting restless. Everyone should go to the real estate party tomorrow night and see if they can find a good catch."

"You plan to sell it to a competitor?" Da Liu asked in surprise.

"We won't sell the houses, but we can sell the land. The key is to look at the premium, and then prolong the negotiation period so they don't have time to develop it," Chen Fan sneered.

Xinghuo Investment still has 22 plots of land and 8 large factories, all of which must be sold before 1997.

Wouldn't it be great if foreign capital came in?
The following evening, Zeng Ali and Zhao Yuanyuan changed into formal attire. Unlike their usual simple style, both of them wore jade jewelry and dressed up for the occasion.

When Li Hongying came over, she looked at the two of them and joked, "It's quite rare. It's the first time I've seen you two wearing so much jewelry. And these jade pieces are all top-quality."

"These were all recently acquired by Qiu'er."

Zeng Ali took her arm and walked out: "In recent years, the price of jade has risen a lot. Chen Fan thinks there is a lot of room for price increases. Do you want to buy a batch?"

“Xiao Fan said so, I will definitely follow up.”

Li Hongying got into the car with Zeng Ali and said, "Tonight's party is a test by real estate developers to see if Xiao Fan is okay. When we get there, we shouldn't get involved in real estate topics. Instead, we should talk to the women there about jewelry, skincare, and the like."

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(End of this chapter)