According to a recent report published by Soho Overseas Property Intelligence about property exhibitions in Hong Kong there, were 913 property exhibitions held in Hong Kong between January and August 2020. These figures will be surprising to many and are set out below.
| Year | N# of Property Exhibitions | N# of Projects Promoted | N# of Cities | N# of Countries | N# of Agents |
| 2019 | 984 | 365 | 57 | 21 | 85 |
| 2020 | 913 | 365 | 44 | 13 | 128 |
But how much does a property exhibition cost? And as an investor, why should you even care?
Let me start by telling you how much a property exhibition costs to hold. Property exhibitions tend to have three key cost elements, I have set out below based on my experience the cost of holding a 3 day property exhibition in a central Hong Kong hotel.
Cost 1: Hire of the hotel or event space
The cost of actually hiring the space for the event is high. Exhibitions tend to take place in 5* hotels such as the Mandarin Oriental, The Four Seasons and The Langham. As you might expect, these hotels are not cheap! And on top of that, the room needs to be set up with the lightboxes and model, which also adds to the cost. Because Agents have to try to get as many potential investors to the exhibition room as possible, these hotels tend to be in city centre locations for ease of access and to capture people whilst they are out shopping or having lunch.
| Room Cost | USD 95,000 |
| Set Up Hire | USD 5,000 |
| Total Cost | USD 100,000 |
Cost 2: Point of sale materials
Costs to produce sales materials for event, together with of setting up costs.
| Scale Model of Development | c USD 80,000 (but the sky is the limit!) |
| Brochure & Printing | USD 8,000 – USD 10,000 |
| Model Shipping & Installation | USD 6,500 |
| Light box rental, set up and on the ground logistics | USD 6,500 |
| Light box panel printing | USD 3,000 |
| Shipping Materials | USD 1,500 |
| Total Cost | USD 105,000 + |
Cost 3: Advertising & promoting a Property Exhibition
Costs associated with promoting the event in media and to databases of investors.
| Design layout and production 100,000 postal invitations | USD 4,000 |
| Postal invitation cards | USD 12,500 |
| Advertising (Press & Digital) | USD 50,000 – USD 100,000 + |
| Total Cost | USD 100,000 + |
So for an investor, what is the cost per sale?
To put it another way, how much does it cost you to buy a property at an exhibition? In reality a surprisingly small number of properties are actually sold at property exhibitions – it’s probably an average around 10. The reason you should care about this, is because as a property investor, the cost is ultimately borne by YOU.
| N# of Sales | Cost per Sale (USD) |
| 1 | 300,000 |
| 2 | 150,000 |
| 3 | 100,000 |
| 4 | 75,000 |
| 5 | 60,000 |
| 6 | 50,000 |
| 7 | 42,850 |
| 8 | 37,500 |
| 9 | 33,333 |
| 10 | 30,000 |
Why should you even care?
Why should you even care? Because if you are thinking about buying property off plan and are considering buying at a property exhibition it is you who will foot the bill! Read our recent post The Truth about Property Exhibitions to find out more.
