(Yicai) July 8 -- Shenzhen’s ultra-luxury residential property market has been experiencing a boom in recent months, mainly thanks to the active participation of enriched tech entrepreneurs and finance executives.

China Overseas Land and Investment’s Antis Residences project at the Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base, a major business and technology center, sold out upon opening late last month, industry insiders told Yicai. The 72 luxury units were priced at an average price of CNY35 million (USD5.1 million), for an average price per square meter of over CNY180,000 (USD26,470).

Around 50 percent of the buyers were financial industry practitioners, while 20 percent worked in the tech and internet industry, according to the industry insiders.

In the same area, luxury project Citic Xinyue Bay was sold out in only half an hour at the end of May. The average price per unit was CNY85 million, with the price per sqm exceeding CNY200,000. Most buyers were young professionals from the finance and semiconductor industries.

The second-hand luxury property market is also booming. “One client bought a pre-owned luxury residence in Shenzhen Bay for over CNY40 million in June,” a senior real estate agent based in Nanshan district, told Yicai. New local property policies now allow residents to buy an additional home, prompting more purchases.

Three real estate brokerage stores under the agent’s oversight in Shenzhen’s core districts posted their best sales performance in nearly six years in the first half, closing 10 to 12 transactions a month on average. About 80 percent of buyers worked in chips, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, intelligent manufacturing, and related industries.

Luxury home buyers are highly concentrated in cutting-edge sectors, such as chip and AI, a senior executive at a real estate developer that rolled out multiple luxury projects in Shenzhen told Yicai. They are mostly company founders, core senior managers, or technical partners, and around 70 percent of them were born after 1990, with many being under 30 years old.

Buoyant expectations for income growth enable the new rich in the tech industry to wrap up the whole process from house viewing to contract signing within just one month, Wu Rui, managing director of Savills South China, told Yicai. “They prioritize residences that can support their work rhythm, social demands, and identity recognition.”

Most buyers amassed wealth rapidly via equity monetization and project dividends, making them far more inclined to pay for homes in cash. “Salaries alone may not cover mortgage payments for luxury properties for executives at some listed tech firm, so they turn to equity monetization, which grants them the capacity for one-off lump-sum payments.”

In the first half, the price of stocks in the AI, computing power, semiconductors, and electronics industries surged, with several jumping more than 500 percent, prompting shareholders to cash out. For example, corporate shareholders, employee shareholding platforms, and senior executives of Shenzhen-based storage chip firm Longsys Electronics have collectively sold over CNY4 billion (USD588.4 million) worth of shares since late last year.

“Policies encouraging AI, semiconductor, energy storage, and chip enterprises to go public and raise capital have turned their early investors into high-net-worth individuals post-listing,” Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center, told Yicai.

Booming luxury home sales also heated up Shenzhen’s core land market in the first half. Three luxury residential land plots in downtown auctioned in June recorded premium rates of between 99 percent and 151 percent.

The land plot in Yuehai, which is surrounded by offices from internet and semiconductor giants, such as Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group Holding, ByteDance, and DJI, was auctioned at a record floor price of CNY108,700 per sqm.

The two other plots were in Guiwan, which sits within Shenzhen’s financial headquarters cluster, and Bao’an Central, which neighbors Penguin Island, Tencent’s new global HQ, an area hosting the densest concentration of local internet, AI semiconductor, high-tech, and advanced manufacturing enterprises.

“Real estate developers dare to bid aggressively for core land parcels because they believe new rich tech executives are willing to pay a premium for high-quality assets as long as the product quality is premium enough,” Wu explained.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione