North Point flats for 8000hkd

[Jbren]

Ive recently started to visit flats in North Point (single room, furnished) and was (maybe naively) surprised to see that most of places are basically built from a big apartment divided in 3 or 4 individual rooms, they share a common corridor. The rooms are however distinctly separated by real walls.

All visited studios were recently renovated with new furnitures (fridge, bed, cooking surface..).

Has someone any thoughts or experience about these studios ? I'm worried that the sound isolation might not be so good but could not check it precisely.

In particular, the Metropole building has several of these studios. Should I be worried about the age of the building ? (~50y I think)

thanks!

[MandM!]

Depends what you are looking for. Personally I wouldn't do a subdivided flat. It's illegal, you have less protections, your utilities are likely to be higher, it's going to be more noisy from your neighbors, the landlord isn't going to pay to build quality walls.

Old buildings have more trouble, are more dirty, might have more bugs, cockroaches, etc.

[Jbren]

Oh I did not know it was illegal, well that definitely kills that possibility for me then. I heard of cases in which the individual rooms were like 20sqft or so yes. Here for 8000hkd you get a 150sqft fully furnished, through agency. Utilities are based on individual counters from what I understood.

[MandM!]

Yes, there are agencies doing it, and many people are living like that. Subdivided flats are not legal, and utilities in HK are charged by tiers. Because subdivided flats are not legally classified as separate units, there is one main meter, and the usage is higher because of the extra people. So the landlord isn't going to eat the costs, they are passing the higher rates onto you.

[drumbrake]

A subdivided flat is not necessarily illegal. In Industrial buildings, they probably are illegal. It's possible to have a separate meter for electricity in a sub-divided flat.