Agents in Hong Kong are bound by territories as a general rule. Do you remember the names of the area's that you saw village houses during your January visit ?
As it makes it much easier to match up an agent that handles the area that you're interested in. Also ringing an agent from Australia isnt going to stir much motivation out of the HK agent either lol. Unless you are standing face to face, you arent going to get far with an agent here.
I could rattle off 15 area's of Hong kong that have many village houses in the 900K to 3 million price range from lung Kwu Tan to Clear water bay. Pretty big area to cover, but with agents that cater for their particular allocated area, you're going to need an area to start with, then the agent you like can work with other agents and share the commissions at sale time..
From my experience buying property in Hong Kong, online websites are a useless tool, generally the industry advertises low ball prices on property that has already been sold or any number of excuses explaining why the online promoted house is no longer available for the price listed. The HK real estate industry is not regulated with crippling fines that will shut them down for false advertising, not like it is in Australia under ASIC's watchful eye.
You need to get in front of an agent who will take you around to 20 or 30 or as many properties it takes until you find the one that you will be happiest living in. A place to call home as such...
You need to work out how far away from the HK CBD you want to be, if you plan to renovate or just move in, if shopping centres are important to be located near where you plan to live, and if you plan to have a car in HK or not.
Cheers .