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Showing posts from April, 2012

Park Island apartment rennovation by Good Living Interior Design

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Some photos of some nice interior rennovation of a Hong Kong apartment, in Park Island, Ma Wan. This apartment is 2 bedrooms, and 740 square feet. Nice work guys! Their website is http://www.goodliving.com.hk/ .

HK property prices rebound to new highs - will deposit ratios be increased again?

Despite the high deposit ratios imposed by the HKMA for propety loans in Hong Kong, property prices in Hong Kong appear to be starting a march towards new highs. With borrowing rates so low, rental prices ever increasing, and asset prices in Asia rising, Hong Kong residents seem to be finding property to be an attractive investment, and one which will benefit them as asset prices across the region rise. In a good article about Hong Kong property prices http://www.chinadailyapac.com/article/hkma-worries-over-renewed-property-market-asset-bubble  and an eventual asset bubble, Chinadaily published the following points: Local home prices have already advanced more than 5 percent in the last month. The Centa-City Leading Index (CCL), an index used to gauge the local home market’s price trend, rose for the fourth consecutive weeks for the first time in 52-week that pushed the CCL to a 24-week high. The 99.17 reading represented a cumulative surge of 5.07 percent of local home prices in

Price Graphs for Park Island Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 5

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A reader of this site, commenting on my post containing a  Park Island Property Price Chart , requested that rather than provide an overall summary of Park Island prices, that I provide a chart for each Phase of Park Island. So, below I am now attaching Price Graphs for Park Island Phase 1, Park Island Phase 2, Park Island Phase 3, and Park Island Phase 5. The period covered is the last 2 years. (There is no Park Island Phase 4 as "4" is considered an unlucky number in Hong Kong). Park Island Phase 1 Prices Park Island Phase 2 Prices Park Island Phase 3 Prices Park Island Phase 5 Prices The line shows the average prices per square foot for each transaction, and the bar graph in red shows transaction volume. PS - I also recently received a comment from a reader encouraging me to post things of interest about Park Island other than just comments about prices. I have taken note of that comment, and hope I can strike the right balance between people who are

Park Island blog featured on this website - what language is it?

I have no idea what language this is, but it came to my attention today that they had featured this site for information about Park Island http://hongkong.info.pl/to-tak-jak-w-chinach/ . If someone knows what language this is do let me know! Polish or Russian perhaps? I did notice some interesting sites mentioned on that site. One is http://www.bigwhiteguy.com/  which is about a gwailo living in Hong Kong and his various observations on life in HK. The other is a site related to Lamma Island called http://www.lamma.com.hk/ . This is a great site related to Lamma Island and the Lamma Island community. I wish we had something similar for Park Island.

Park Island price chart for last 2 years

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Price Graph for Park Island, Ma Wan, Hong Kong This chart shows prices for Park Island per square foot, from January 2010 to March 2012. As you can see, prices stopped rising for the last 9 months of 2011 (staying at around $5500 psf), and transaction volume fell during the last 6 months of 2011. See this comment on Hong Kong Property Prices I made last year for a more detailed explanation of what lead to the stablizing in prices and the decline in transaction volume in 2011. So far in 2012, it seems prices have started to pick up again, as well as transaction volume, although I am not sure yet if this is a short term effect due to the Anacapri launch or not. Let's see. I still think my predictions in the article referred to above will be correct.

The Anacapri Park Island Club-house

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Ancapri Club House on Park Island Above is an illustration of the Anacapri facilities on Park Island, including the Apacapri pool and BBQ facilities on Anacapri. I find the club house very nice, especially the pool facilities. The pool and outdoor common area has a classy modern design, and is of a high quality. One thing I often look at with a new development is to consider how it will look in 10 years time. For some developments, facilities look nice brand new, but then look terrible after a few years of aging, as materials used start to decay. For Anacapri, my sense is that long-lasting and high qualitiy materials have been used. So the pool area and club house should "age well" and I think will retain their classy look with the passage of time. What is not shown here, and probably the most spectacular feature, is the way the pool looks over to the ocean when you are in it, creating the "infinity pool" effect. Many pools in Hong Kong face a wall, or othe

A hike around Ma Wan Island - Part 1

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My recent post post about the history of Ma Wan  History of Ma Wan  inspired a friend of mine who came from overseas in Hong Kong, to take a big hike around Ma Wan Island. I took a bunch of photos during our walk, some of which came out really well, and if I do say do myself, some are actually quite artistic. I am going to post these up in various parts on this blog, along with my comments. I hope my photos will encourage people to come over and spend a day hiking on Ma Wan. There are really some quite spectacular and unique things to see! Hiking up Ma Wan Island This is the path we took to the top of the Peak on Ma Wan. It's quite an easy walk. You go under the Tsing Ma bridge from Park Island, and find your way up the mountain.  I spotted this dog, which at first thought was a wild dog as it was timid, but I then saw its owner coming the other way. I actually saw only very few people during most parts of the walk. Park Island Estate You can see here the view from the

History of Ma Wan, Hong Kong

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I came across an interesting article about the history of Ma Wan by Phillip Jones in a book called "Hong Kong Discovery". His article called "The Road to Salvation" contains historical photos of the island, and notes that for most of the last 200 years Ma Wan was an isolated community, basically sustained by farming and fishing. He talks about a visit by the British in 1794, the occasional visit by pirates, and how there was a Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs checkpoint set up on Ma Wan in 1897. He writes about the Chan family, who are still influential land owners on the island, the changes faced by the fishing and shrimp industries in the 1950s and 1960s and HK made its change to it modern economy, and also about the history and changes brought about by the Lantau Link, and the rapid development that occurred once Ma Wan became "connected" to the rest of Hong Kong. Interestingly the article itself is now part of history - I think it was probably wri

Renting an apartment on Park Island

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The most common way to rent an apartment on Park Island is just to come over, and visit one of the estate agents on the Island and ask them to show you apartments in your price range. Take a look at a range of apartments, make a note of the ones you like (based on size, views, configuration, etc) and then make offers. There are still some bargains here, compared to HK Island.  Hong Kong Property Advertisement  If you see adverts for property in Chinese like this, its quite easy to work out. Here for example, they are asking $35,000 for a 1238 square foot apartment on Park Island. All the agents speak English, so I would suggest you just go in and chat to them and see what they can show you. And don't forget to negotiate. Its usual to seek 10% off the asking price on a property advertised for rent. If you come across as a desirable tenant, the landlord might well be willing to accept a lower rent in return for knowing the place will be well looked after and that the rent wi