Like Tree39Likes

Advice on family friendly neighbourhoods

Closed Thread
Page 4 of 6 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 LastLast
  1. #31

    Join Date
    Feb 2017
    Posts
    158

    I would recommend Bel-Air: nicest Club House I've seen in HK and very close to Cyberport


  2. #32

    Join Date
    May 2017
    Location
    New Territories West
    Posts
    1,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Kowloon Goon:
    PMed you...
    Why? .......

  3. #33

    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    2,260
    Quote Originally Posted by Kowloon Goon:
    So much money for rent. I guess that third maid needs her own room too.
    and the pilot is not even there half the time...
    Kowloon Goon and gigglinggal like this.

  4. #34

    There have been a few comments about the $70k budget in this thread. We also moved from London to Hong Kong 2 years ago and my company gave us a generous accommodation allowance to be spent on accommodation only and with no cash alternative available, so our view was that if that was the case, we may as well use the full budget, if we needed to do so to get what we wanted. Of course we appreciate we were very fortunate, but equally, we had a very nice home in London and we would not have agreed to move to Hong Kong if we hadn't been able to live in a good property here.

    Despite a pretty good budget, the reality is that you still may need to compromise as there won't be many places in Hong Kong that will tick every box, but there should be no problem finding somewhere reasonable. When we arrived, my husband (as I had to start work immediately) spent a couple of days visiting various locations we had earmarked, including a number of those already mentioned here and ended up shortlisting completely different locations to where we had thought we would end up.

    We then contacted a couple of agents (either get recommendations or speak to a few until you find one or two you are comfortable with - their commission is directly linked to your rental costs, so there should be no problem finding one who will try and look after you well) and gave them our criteria and price range. We spent half of the following Saturday visiting 6 properties with one agent in one preferred area and the second half of the same day visiting another 6 with a second agent in our other preferred area. By the end of the day, we had seen 2 which we liked and after second viewings which we did in the evening to get an idea of the ambiance (e.g. noise levels) at that time of the day and the commute, we put an offer in on our preferred property and within 2 weeks of arrival, we had signed the lease and moved in a few weeks later.

    To respond to some of your concerns:
    - 5-6 weeks to find a place and get a lease signed is very do-able and I know several people who have found places at this price range as quickly as we did. It may take two or three weeks to negotiate price (which we drove ourselves, not the agent) and get a lease drawn up and signed, so you do need to start looking pretty soon after your arrival.
    - The main driver around our move date was more when the contents of our London house were due to turn up. From memory it took around 7 weeks. It should be easy enough to extend the lease on your serviced apartment if required.
    - We had also heard the stories of difficult landlords. It's less of a problem at the higher end of the market but if you are worried, try and find somewhere with a commercial rather than a private landlord as they are more likely to be professional. Our entire building is owned by a commercial landlord and managed by Savills and the service is above and beyond what we expected.
    - The properties that make it onto the websites aren't necessarily the best ones available. We had found another apartment in building we eventually ended up moving into and asked the agent to arrange a viewing, but as well as showing us the one we had found, he showed us another one in the same building which was newly renovated and not that much more expensive.
    - If dated decor is a problem for you, ask your agent to show you only new or refurbished properties or ones which the landlord is prepared to renovate (though if the latter, there will of course be a delay).

    Kowloon Goon, TheBrit, KNB and 3 others like this.

  5. #35

    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Posts
    310

    Agree! They have always been paid well. With very nice extras!


  6. #36

    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    4,188
    Quote Originally Posted by Scousebanana:
    There have been a few comments about the $70k budget in this thread. We also moved from London to Hong Kong 2 years ago and my company gave us a generous accommodation allowance to be spent on accommodation only and with no cash alternative available, so our view was that if that was the case, we may as well use the full budget, if we needed to do so to get what we wanted.
    I know quite a few people who did this, but then after a few years the company put them on a local contract which cut the housing benefit. An estate agent I worked with says she's taken around quite a few tai tais who sobbed at having to move into a $50k flat in Mid-Levels having previously been in $100K in Repulse Bay.
    rani likes this.

  7. #37

    Join Date
    Oct 2017
    Posts
    19

    Thank you!

    I dont want to live in Disco Bay...we want to stay close to city life but the same time to be able to enjoy family activities...our budget would allow to have both...

    Under 'cafe culture' I didn't mean 'Parisian style')) I just want to pop in nice cafe with my kid after walking in park or meet friends over coffee.


  8. #38

    Join Date
    Oct 2017
    Posts
    19

    Yes, you are right )))

    tai tai is 'westerns'?


  9. #39

    Join Date
    Oct 2017
    Posts
    19
    Quote Originally Posted by Scousebanana:
    There have been a few comments about the $70k budget in this thread. We also moved from London to Hong Kong 2 years ago and my company gave us a generous accommodation allowance to be spent on accommodation only and with no cash alternative available, so our view was that if that was the case, we may as well use the full budget, if we needed to do so to get what we wanted. Of course we appreciate we were very fortunate, but equally, we had a very nice home in London and we would not have agreed to move to Hong Kong if we hadn't been able to live in a good property here.

    Despite a pretty good budget, the reality is that you still may need to compromise as there won't be many places in Hong Kong that will tick every box, but there should be no problem finding somewhere reasonable. When we arrived, my husband (as I had to start work immediately) spent a couple of days visiting various locations we had earmarked, including a number of those already mentioned here and ended up shortlisting completely different locations to where we had thought we would end up.

    We then contacted a couple of agents (either get recommendations or speak to a few until you find one or two you are comfortable with - their commission is directly linked to your rental costs, so there should be no problem finding one who will try and look after you well) and gave them our criteria and price range. We spent half of the following Saturday visiting 6 properties with one agent in one preferred area and the second half of the same day visiting another 6 with a second agent in our other preferred area. By the end of the day, we had seen 2 which we liked and after second viewings which we did in the evening to get an idea of the ambiance (e.g. noise levels) at that time of the day and the commute, we put an offer in on our preferred property and within 2 weeks of arrival, we had signed the lease and moved in a few weeks later.

    To respond to some of your concerns:
    - 5-6 weeks to find a place and get a lease signed is very do-able and I know several people who have found places at this price range as quickly as we did. It may take two or three weeks to negotiate price (which we drove ourselves, not the agent) and get a lease drawn up and signed, so you do need to start looking pretty soon after your arrival.
    - The main driver around our move date was more when the contents of our London house were due to turn up. From memory it took around 7 weeks. It should be easy enough to extend the lease on your serviced apartment if required.
    - We had also heard the stories of difficult landlords. It's less of a problem at the higher end of the market but if you are worried, try and find somewhere with a commercial rather than a private landlord as they are more likely to be professional. Our entire building is owned by a commercial landlord and managed by Savills and the service is above and beyond what we expected.
    - The properties that make it onto the websites aren't necessarily the best ones available. We had found another apartment in building we eventually ended up moving into and asked the agent to arrange a viewing, but as well as showing us the one we had found, he showed us another one in the same building which was newly renovated and not that much more expensive.
    - If dated decor is a problem for you, ask your agent to show you only new or refurbished properties or ones which the landlord is prepared to renovate (though if the latter, there will of course be a delay).
    Thank you for such detailed response! x

    Our situation is pretty the same as yours 2 years ago. Do you mind to say the name of your building or area? It sounds really worth to check out.

  10. #40

    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    NT/CUHK
    Posts
    910
    Quote Originally Posted by KNB:
    tiny kitchens..
    Not to reply to all of your hesitations, just this one:

    I've seen *very* few apartments with large kitchens in Hong Kong. Even places that are otherwise quite large, that I've seen, have usually had kitchens which were both small and relatively isolated from the rest of the apartment.

    The assumption is that the people paying the rent won't be doing the cooking; instead, a domestic helper (a topic about which around 1/3 of geoexpat threads revolve) will be doing the cooking, so there's not a lot of reason to make the kitchens that nice, and certainly not large.

    I'm sure there are exceptions. There may even be whole developments that are an exception to this. But the rule of thumb here is that even as the apartments get bigger/nicer the kitchens lag behind.