There are a surprising variety of housing in Hong Kong from small, fully furnished serviced apartments in the centre of the city to large, single family dwellings with a yard and a garage on the South of Hong Kong Island. Although the majority of expatriates live on Hong Kong Island, more recently it has become popular to venture to other parts of Hong Kong such as Kowloon, due to more businesses opening offices in this area. Sai Kung and the New Territories for villas with sea views or outlying Islands such as Discovery Bay offer a variety of housing options in alternative settings.

Property Condition

Many of the properties are not fixed up before a contract to lease the premises is signed. In many situations, air conditioning units will have been switched off resulting in mould on the walls, fixtures will have been moved, showing marks and faded walls, and debris from previous tenants may still be strewn about. At first it can be a depressing experience, a bit of imagination is required to see past this.

Your agent can advise you about standard decoration requests you can ask a landlord to fix, prior to signing a lease. Depending on the negotiation this could range from painting the walls, waxing the floors, cleaning the exhaust fans and professional cleaning among others.

New Buildings and Old Buildings

Newer buildings, defined as less than ten years old, often provide less square footage
than other older buildings. Square footage in the newer buildings, is calculated by
dividing the communal areas by the number of flats in the complex, exterior walls and
so forth; and adding it to the actual square footage of the flat. Often this results in an overstatement of up to 20-30% of the advertised space in terms of actual living space.

Older buildings described as ‘colonial’ or with ‘character’ provide good value in space, generally speaking higher ceilings, and more space for inbuilt cupboards. However,
unless the property has been renovated the bathrooms and kitchens can be outdated. Some older buildings do provide facilities as well; conditions may vary.

You will notice that the unit of measurement in Hong Kong is generally square feet. The following chart is a rough guide to help you convert from square meters to square footage.

Commuting Times

One of the great benefits of moving to Hong Kong is the commute to work is generally much shorter than what you currently have.

Rush hour (when traffic is worst) is generally 8:15 am - 9:30 am in the mornings and 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm at night. So, if you plan to work hours that begin earlier and end earlier (or vice-versa), your commuting time can be significantly reduced. For example, the commute from Stanley is 50-60 minutes at rush hour and approximately 30 minutes at other times