HONG KONG - Hong Kong has one of the most expensive and crowded property markets in the world, and CBRE, the commercial real estate services firm with offices here, can be highly imaginative when illustrating that point.
The CBRE team has released a hilarious Christmas video with the tongue-in-cheek announcement that Santa Claus, “the world's leading toy distributor,†had found a solution to the tricky issue of where to stable his “global distribution mechanisms.†That is, the reindeer.
Santa Claus moved to Hong Kong last year, CBRE reported in its equally funny 2011 Christmas video, to take advantage of the lucrative mainland Chinese market and locate its base of operations closer to the major toy-sourcing region of the Pearl River Delta.
As I wrote here recently, Hong Kong's space constraints are becoming an increasingly serious problem.
No wonder, then, that Santa has come up against space constraints.
“The reindeer stabling problem that Santa Claus is facing is not a seasonal issue but rather a reflection of a wider problem that Hong Kong must urgently address,†CBRE's head of research for Hong Kong, Edward Farrelly, noted in the spoof announcement. “Basically, there is an acute shortage of available space across all real estate sectors.â€
The solution that the firm found for its high-profile client: Stabling the creatures at the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which organizes the city's horse racing activities - on condition that they, too, join the races, once the Christmas delivery rush is over.
