In the UK we are used to the odd verbal spat between estate agents over such things as touting or board ‘disappearances’.

But in Hong Kong it seems that things get rather more heated.

In 2018 there were reports of full-on fighting in the streets as estate agents fell out over efforts to tempt buyers to view new developments.

The coconuts.co website said:

“While packs of property agents swarming pedestrians and drivers with business cards and brochures have long been a familiar sight in the city’s malls and streets, scenes of them scrapping like mixed martial arts fighters in button down shirts have become increasingly common.”

At the time an agent explained that:

“It’s a matter of everyone wants to earn income, and there is more and more competition. With a set number of people walking through, fighting for customers is inevitable.”

Then in May of this year dimsumdaily brought news of a brawl between two groups of estate agents in the Kwun Tong district.

After the May bust up the Hong Kong Estate Agents Authority (EAA) said that real estate agents need to be ‘self-disciplined’ and that a real-estate licensee who has been convicted for committing a crime involving violence will not only have his license revoked, but will not be given a license again within five years.

It appears that the warning has not been heeded as the EAA  yesterday warned it would hold the management of estate agent companies accountable if their agents engaged in physical brawls.

Just bear that in mind next time your rival sticks their ‘please call me urgently’ business card through the letterbox of your brand new sole agency instruction…