Park Island, Ma Wan, Hong Kong

Check out how quickly Ma Wan got cleaned up after the typhoon. What a great sense of community Park Islanders have! It was really quite touching and inspiring to see so many pitch in and help out in restoring their homes after the typhoon.

The residents of Park Island, Ma Wan, endured incredibly powerful winds and heavy rain, and survived in style. Overall, the damage to apartments on Park Island was surprisingly minimal. The most common type of damage was due to water leaking in through windows or various air vents such as in the kitchen, or bathrooms, or via air conditioning units. This is a testimony to the solid and high quality construction quality of the Park Island apartments. The outdoor areas of Park Island suffered some damage, most of it rather nominal (although it looked pretty bad in the immediate aftermath. Palm trees stripped entirely of leaves, tree branches blown off. Here are a few pictures after the typhoon. Monster super typhoon Mangkhut Foliage on Park Island damaged by the typhoon Lucky this heavy structure didn't land on anyone Image the forced needed to rip out this tree Lots of rubbish blew onto our beautiful beach :( But it will be cleaned up soon.

Cool photo. Well done to whoever took the pic!

To the amazing photographer, please let me know who you are so I can credit you! Its great that we can "capture" history before this area is re-developed...

Not a bad place to hang our on a day off, with a nice cold beer, bottle of wine, and a picnic blanket :) I would add though, like all parts of HK, crap does wash up onto the beaches (especially plastic). This beach on Ma Wan, whilst not an officially Government sanctioned beach, is regularly cleaned up by local residents. Thank you for caring!!!

It is time for me to update the guidance I provided on HK property stamp duty few years ago here:  HK Stamp Duty on Property  for 2018. Whilst the principles remain the same (eg charge stamp duty, as part of various measures to keep the market from rising too quickly), the stamp duty calculation formula is a little more complicated.  This increasing complexity is a shame, as Hong Kong has always prided itself on simplicity when it comes to doing financial transactions, as well as being a country (well now actually in fact a "city", albeit a very special one) that embraces the free market and abstains as much as possible from interference in the free market. These "cooling measures" are intended to suppress value, (eg keeping prices down below what would be the case in a more open market). Sooner or later, when stamp duties are normalized, the prices of property in Hong Kong will move up higher as the many years of suppressed value is unlocked released.

We really do live in a lovely place!