For Canadian marketing man Chris Dillon, the long march to becoming a property owner and investor in Hong Kong began 21 years ago when his partner Laurel Dillon said she hankered to leave their chilly home in Calgary and head eastwards in search of the rising sun.
Laurel set off on her voyage shortly after the two first met at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Dillon followed a few months later and the two spent three years in Tokyo before making their way to Hong Kong where he worked with Metro Broadcast Corp and a public relations firm, before setting up his own public relations firm.
'In early 2002 the lease on my office was up for renewal. Business was good and paying rent was losing its appeal. Why not buy an office, I thought.' So he spent HK$1 million to buy an office floor in Central.
'The previous owner had paid HK$18 million for five floors. How much could I lose?'
His second foray into the property market came during a bad year for the property market in 2004, one year after the Sars outbreak that caused property prices to plunge 70 per cent from the October 1997 peak.
He used the opportunity to buy a four-bedroom 2,200 square foot flat in a 30-year-old building in Pok Fu Lam for HK$11 million. He has no plans to sell the property, which provides accommodation for his family, which has grown to five since he and Laurel married in 1993.
But a year after buying the flat he spent a further HK$1.8 million for a 3,500 sq ft factory unit in a 30-year-old building in Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen.
