Lord Of the Land part 4

Previously on the Landlord Show

When we bought the Ma On Shan apartment, we intended to rent it out. The property manager of the Hung Hom apartment found a reliable tenant right away. Ma On Shan is not as conveniently located as Hung Hom, but it is one of those up and coming neighborhoods that all the experts say is going to be jumping any time now.

When we thought about keeping it for ourselves, we did the math. Any time any of us go to Hong Kong, we either spend the night at a friend's house or get a hotel room. One night in a hotel is more expensive than a single day's rent on the apartment, but a full month's rent, every month, is going to bring in far more than we would ever spend from the occasional hotel. It makes no financial sense to keep the apartment empty just so we have a place to stay from time to time.

On the other hand, this is a brand new apartment. The estate was built this year. Unlike any apartment any of us ever had, no previous occupant had ever lived in this one. Chinese apartments come in a vast variety of styles and sizes. The best are always new. For whatever reason, every apartment loses something as soon as someone else has moved in. Virgin apartments are few and far between.

The Kai Tak apartment is also brand new. It is little more than an empty shell at this point, and will not be ready for occupancy until deep into next year. And the location is far more central than Ma On Shan. But it is also our largest and most expensive apartment, and can easily bring in the most rent. Theoretically, we will sell it for much more than the others some day. That apartment was designed for a family to live in full time, not one or two people to pop in from time to time.

Eventually, we came upon a solution. Kevin knows someone who was looking for an apartment, but did not need four bedrooms. I met this guy once for a few minutes, but Kevin worked with him for years. If he has Kevin's seal of approval, that is good enough for me. He readily agreed to pay far less rent and accept any or all of us as occasional roommates. This is a pretty good deal for everyone. He gets a nice, brand new apartment in a new estate for less rent than he would ever pay without roommates, while having the place to himself most of the time. We get a place to stay whenever we are in town. The apartment was practically designed for this arrangement. The master bedroom/bathroom, rented out to Kevin's colleague, are on one side of the living room, while the other bedrooms and bathrooms, for the rest of us, are on the opposite side. By renting it out ourselves, we pay no fees to the property management company, aside from standard maintenance and security. We would still make more money if we rented out the apartment to a family and went to hotels while in town, but now we have a much better place to stay.

I like having a place in town. It seems like such an adult thing to do. I have always preferred to stay in apartments over hotels, even on short trips. Hotels are usually cold and impersonal. And all the business hotels look the same to me. Show me pictures of some of the hotel rooms I have stayed in over the years and I might not be able to tell you which was which. Apartments feel like someone's home. I can easily identify every apartment I have known.

This particular apartment is not especially large, but it has enough space for us. Our tenant's bedroom is almost as big as the others combined. Lily and Kevin get the second biggest bedroom because they are two people. Of the remaining small bedrooms, I claimed the one with a balcony. It has the same view of Plover Cove as the living room balcony, but it leaves a buffer bedroom between them and me. I don't know how thick the interior walls are yet, but I know how long it has been since I had happy time with anyone, so the less I hear theirs, the better. Who got which bathroom was entirely decided by location. The master bathroom is in the master bedroom. The two smaller bathrooms are right next to Lily and Kevin's bedroom and directly across the hall from my bedroom.

Since it is a new building, the swimming pools look as clean as they will ever be. The main pool in the main courtyard is already a popular place for people to sit around and stare at their phones, but it looks like the smaller rooftop pool on one of the towers has never been used. I will change that the next time I go. It is not at all visible from the ground floor, or anywhere other than that tower's roof, so it is possible that not everyone knows about it. But anyone who was given the large packet of information that we got when we bought the place should know exactly where it is. The gym is small, and not at all impressive, but everything in it is new. They have a good variety of equipment for different muscle groups.

One feature that I have never seen in Hong Kong is that every top floor apartment has its own private deck on the roof, other than the tower with the swimming pool. That is probably not a unique feature, but I have never lived on the top floor in Hong Kong. Until now. We share our roof with two other apartments, but each deck is segregated and is completely private, until someone does maintenance on the elevators or HVAC.

The biggest downside to this apartment is the location, if you want to be in the heart of the city. It would take three different MTR lines to get to Central. Or two different buses in about 90 minutes. But I think if the MTR were not an option, I would simply take a taxi. The drive is probably less than 45 minutes in moderate traffic. Coincidentally, the Tuen Ma line that goes to Ma On Shan also goes to the Kai Tak and Hung Hom apartments.

Fortunately, none of us really care about Central. That is where the foreign tourists and new expats go. It is the Times Square of Hong Kong. Everyone finds better places after a month or two in the city. Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei are my neighborhoods, and I like the Hung Hom to Kwun Tong area. But Lion Rock and Sai Kung Country Park are the best of Hong Kong. Which makes Ma On Shan more convenient than it appears on paper. The nature reserves and country parks are a world away from Central, but Ma On Shan is literally surrounded by nature on all sides. It is also much closer to Shenzhen, making a trip into Mainland China that much easier.