Status: 5 minutes more, I beg you…!!!
Time: 7 AM… I think… Oh gosh! where is my phone… aren’t you running late for work?!
Main goal: Instant coffee – it is getting better
Secondary goal: find a nearby cafeteria, instant coffee is getting better, but the proces is so slow!
T
Soon, two of my favorite pages came out on the laptop screen:
28hse
Midland
Then around 20 other pages were opened – all the potential flats. The photos, telling nothing in Poland, could tell something now. We understood now if it was the exposition to North or other. If this other building is far or will cover everything etc.
The square feet (instead of meters) became familiar too. I started to see why there are two numbers. These were the net and brut dimensions – so with the furniture and without. It was not much but after a day spent on looking at the apartments, it told more than before.
Evolution came upon our need for space as well. We do not need 600 square feet, but it should be more than 500. But then… if 500… there should be one room, not two because it will be tiny… and so on, and so on…
It was fascinating you know. The way of thinking in HK. It was like there was this magical line, and after a certain number of square feet, a flat was obliged to have 2 rooms instead of 1! They became the broom closets this way, but TWO! In HK they were the actual rooms – with a place for a bed and a tiny closet, but who needs more?! There was also a magical line for the prices – all of a sudden they changed to at least 25% more.
So we almost had it, almost the exact number of feet and rooms and the price is ok (16000 HK$), but almost… Oh! This one is perfect… just those 10 feet more… but why is it 20000 HK$ now?!!!
It is not all. When, all cheerful, I sent 3 possibilities to agent X and it turned out that they are fake! Maybe there is this fashion here that putting something nice in will make people call them. (quite right, when you think about it) Then they say that the flat has just gone, but they have another one… and the fish is caught…
And so, I had to cross out some of the adds that I had chosen. Now we knew how to watch out for the hooks… Thank Heavens for Agent X, who was helping us to find a way through this maze.
Another afternoon and another winner. 12 flats later we were looking at almost the same things. We arrived at the point where we needed to decide. DO we want this green space close by? Or it would be better with a pool in the building (yes! It is very common in HK. Especially in the newly built towers)? What is more important –furniture, views or our feelings? We have already agreed, with a sigh, that we would have to pay at least 17000 HK$, especially for a flat on Tsing Yi…
Being asked a question by our agent, we tried not to answer it directly. He wanted us to pick a flat after 2 days, do you imagine?! Our hotel was booked for a week, we had time. It was later that we learned, why he was asking like that. Good flats disappear fast in HK! Especially at a good price and localization that we had chosen. But how could we know? We had Ma Wan’s adds in plans as well and we just wanted to talk it through. Agent X wasn’t very happy about that, but that was part of his job. And ours – was to linger over it.
to be continued…