A picture says a thousand words…
Those are in square feet and HKD dollars…
Kings and I were in the banking industry for a bit over 10 years. While we didn’t make the obscene amounts everyone reads about other bankers making, I always thought we were blessed with a decent living and I hope I remembered to thank God for it not infrequently. Recently, Rockstar even chimes in an Amen on occasion.
There are, like, a thousand apartments like these, where we rent. We can’t afford to buy one (not without making a hole in Rockstar’s college fund and becoming seriously illiquid and mortgaged to the eyeballs). Nor can one of my beloved former mentors, a serious derivatives quant who had been heading his unit for a few years before opting for early semi-retirement when the crisis hit.
SO WHO’S BUYING THESE THINGS???
Silly me, everyone knows who’s buying these days.
Melbourne-ians we had dinner with mentioned you could get a more than decent home in the town (better comparison with our Hong Kong rental) for AUD 500,000 tops.
But watch me regurgitate from Real Estate Weekly on holiday homes (SPACE. Sunlight when it’s not even summer) anyway:
2 bedroom cottage with formal lounge plus bungalow on 7,500 sq feet of land in Rosebud: AUD 419,000
4 bedroom modern home with home theater in Rosebud: AUD 550,000
2 bedroom 2 storey luxury townhouse in Sorrento, minutes from beach and township: AUD 600,000 mid
3 living areas, private deck, large yard on 17,500 sq feet of land in Langwarrin: AUD 485,000 – 530,000
The numbers are unreal. A 5,600 sq ft house where we live in Bel-Air would cost HKD 130,000,000 thereabouts (very roughly AUD 18.85mio). It’s comparing apples to oranges but it’s a huge motivation to start liking them apples.
Maybe Rockstar can just get himself a grant or scholarship when the time comes.
We’re not serious – Medium term, we’re loving how exciting and fast Hong Kong is, it makes us feel alive, it pushes us to be better at what we do. Now if we could just afford to buy something here…
