Crocodile,
My point was that, as we don't have any specific need to live downtown as both of us can afford to work from home, a house could make sense. If we had to go to a determined location daily, at fixed times, either for work or to drop kids at school, we would have the constrainst to be relatively close from where the action is. This is not the case, so my question could be : if you don't have to commute, are there any reasons (security as pertinently pointed out by Gilles, or costs), justifying buying a flat rather than a house in the HK environment.
Hopefully the wording of this latter question will be clearer than the previous one; if you still can't dig it, please let me know and I'll PM you in Chinese, my mother tongue.
Thanks to all for your informative responses.
Helen