luxury apartment - hong kong style

So the story goes like this: my buddy in Hong Kong is considering moving into a bigger flat (yes, flat, I already got used to saying flat as oppose to apartment). The reason, is two folds. Firstly, he and his wife are thinking of expanding the family, and their current two-bedroom 670 square feet flat is just too small for a future baby, a future baby sitter and themselves. The other reason is for investment - although the current property market is already at a sky high, but one can argue some flats have the potential to go higher. At least, the bubble concept is not a widely accepted one, not yet anyways.

So on a Sunday afternoon, we decided to check out the Grand Waterfront. The estate has five towers sitting adjacent to the old Kai Tak airport in east Kowloon. The estate is branded luxury, equiped a five star european style lobby and a fine club house featuring state of the art facilities including: a swiming pool, karaoke rooms, fitness center, a spa, a 20-seat cinema (the seats are actually full-size massage chairs) and more. Each tower has its own lobby and each lobby has two concierage person and a security guard. The concierage people actually deserve a word of attention as I find them being much younger (some of them in their twenties) than the average ones I have seen elsewhere.

Oh, and yes, did I mention you do not need keys for these flats? You unlock your door by putting your thumb on a scanning device on the door, or, keying in your password through a numberic keypad. Is this just cool or what? NASA style technology is being incorporated into our daily lives. And, you know, my buddy told me about this doorlock thing 3 times before coming to see the flats myself, and it is one of the few things I associated this estate with: the one you scan your thumb to open the door. Yet, I did not remember the name of the estate.

And onto the surroundings: east Kowloon is actually an old district, filled with public housing (public housing is quite common in HK) and an old airport pending for new development. So if you take a walk outside, you will see some aged buildings and dark streets; it will feel like you are in a forgotten part of the city. But, the thinking is that east Kowloon will be redeveloped in the next 5 to 10 years so its land value should rise. However, if you believe in market efficiency, the land price has already been priced in for the potential rise.

So if you wonder why I have not talked about the flats themselves, it is because I think they are the most interesting part. The agent showed us 3 flats, they are all 3-bedroom flats, but the smallest one is around 757 square feet. Yes, 757 square feet for a 3-bedroom flat. And what is more, one of the 757 square feet flats has 2 bathroom, one for the living room, and one for the master bedroom. Now, if you haven't seen a flat in this part of the world, let me tell you, the usable size of these flats are somewhere around 75%. So 757 times 75% gives you 567 square feet. If you don't have an idea of how big 567 square feet is, then you really have to come and see it in Hong Kong, it is smaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall.

The smaller bedroom of the flat is probably the size of, hm, say an evalator. Although it is stretch side ways so you can actually fit a 6 feet by 2.5 feet bed. The room, nevertheless, has a window overlooking the sea, but the size of the window is so rediculously small that it reminds me of prison break. Actually, the ones in Fox River have bigger windows than this.

So how much does this thing cost you? Well, the asking price for the 757 square feet flat is HK$4.8 million. Which works out to be around US$630,000. Keep in mind, the usable are is 567 sqaure feet.

So is this bad? NO! there are way more rediculous flat prices in Hong Kong, especially on the island side (Hong Kong is devided into three big district: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, and New Territories). But what I found interesting is that, when you can't get space in a luxury flat, you are offered with a whole package of other things but space. You will get a nicely decorated club house (which is not very big either), a keyless door, Germany-imported home appliances, and a lot of people to greet you at the lobby.