Buying a house? Yes or No?
 

Hello,

not a lot of discussion on these boards about the pros and cons of using a housing allowance to buy rather than rent in Honkers. As a relative newbie, would be keen to hear some opinions on buying.

Does anyone actually know of anyone who has LOST money or done badly by buying? I have heard the success stories around SARS etc. Over a longer time span real estate generally is a pretty forgiving investment even if you buy at the top of a cycle...would you say this holds true for HK?

Keen to hear some opinions and personal experiences....

DA

There are some that bought at the dizzy highs of the 97 bubble that still haven’t come within 50% of making their money back. :uhoh: :eek:

To be honest if I could afford to buy I would....

But wait i hear you say "You work for a major Airline, you should be able to buy something.... after all your company is paying it off for you"

The fact of the matter is that with a one of two Dependents, it's not all that easy to save enough for the deposit and I'm in the hole enough at the moment I don't want to borrow for the deposit.

You'd be surprised how many are in the same position!

Myself, I bought a big boat. And I'm tellin you, it was big!!! Lost the shirt on that one.

This is a thread I hope will go into the future! I am waiting for a start date from Cathay, and having being involved with the property market in my own country I would also like to dind out more.

If anybody has some time in due course, can ypu please answr the following q's:

1. What is the process for bying property? What I mean by this is, once you have found something that you like, how do you take it from there. Do the property agents arrange the bond or the byer. What are the current interest rates in Hong Kong. What other rates and taxes are applicable etc. The list is endless so creativity might be handy...

2. I am particularly interested in the following scenario. Suppose you buy a place an S/O, and withing a couple of years you start a family and want to move onto soemthing bigger, are you allowed to apply for a second mortgage, rent the first place out, and still receive the mortgage assistance from CX?

Thank you in advance

Justinian, yes you can rent your last place out. Just don't get caught as you will be subject to a D and G sacked and thrown out on to the streets like 2 other FO's recently. The company don't take kindly to people trying to be smart with their money. Remember they are the ones with the brains...................Enjoy your time at CX it really is a very nice place to work.:yuk:

Tryhard, why dont you try hard and get the facts right about the two F/O's you moron

For the newbies,
you get half the allowance for first 2 years if you join as an SO. That would mean around 24K/month I think but it varies from month to month as it is linked to some property price index.

Can you lose money...absolutely. As 404 has posted, those that bought in the mid 90s are waiting to recover their money back, not make any, just recover. The general rule is you dont lose in property but you could be waiting an awful long time. Prices in japan are still below the peaks of 20years ago.

ONto numbers...lets say you get $48K for purchasing(after 2 years here). You pay tax on it so that makes it about $40K. Take out management fees, government rates and rent and that leaves you with about $34K. Interest rates here are just over 5% at the moment so that amount would support a loan of up to $8million. That should get you around 1200 ft2 in midlevels or say 1500+ ft2 in DB. You will need to come up with the deposit somehow. That is 30% but you can get more out of the bank but not 100%. If you decide to move into a bigger place, as a buyer or renter, no problem. Your housing assistance moves with you though, it cannot be used to pay off a house you are not living in.

clear as mud?

OK Sven, the facts are 2 FO's were sacked for effectively doing what Justinian is suggesting. Cold hard fact.........Personal insults will not be tollerated here my friend, I will have to issue you with a stern warning this time but next time I'm reporting you to the moderator. Smarten your ideas up son!

Justinian,

Yes you are able to do this.

Simply inform CX Housing that you wish them to stop paying the mortgage for property A. CX must have nothing to do with property A from this point. Once this is done you are free to rent out property A.

Now you can continue to use the CX mortgage assistance to pay off your next property, property B.

Many people have done this and CX Housing Dept will assist you all they can with the process.

Tryhard,

Firstly they were dismissed because they were effectively living together neither of them rented their places out whilst Cathay was paying for it, in fact they were never even accused of it by CX only by idiots like yourself.

Now run along and report me

What I am suggesting SVEN is that they were defrauding the company in the same way this Justinian chap would be if he were to do what he says was going to do with his housing. He would be dealt with the same way as the other 2 FO's were. Again, I'm not making accusations about anybody. Just using that very recent case as an example. Simmer down boy......

man, has this thread gone off on a tangent. I just bought and all seems ok, you don't need the deposit as the banks have a degree of liquidity they would currently rather not have. IE they are swimming in a sea of money so you should be able to finance the whole shooting match, in one form or another. Couldn't be bothered reading the drivel thus far but remember that you can rent considerably better than you can afford to buy (if you are entering the market now). It is also sometimes difficult to go from big flash rental to smaller owner occupier for yourself.

OK Tryhard after reading your posts on the Australian forum I see your just a !!!! stirer that shouldn't be encouraged

Well why are you encouraging him then??????? :ugh:

I understand you get up to about 22K for the first 2 years as an SO, then up to about 44K. Once you get upgraded, how much do you get as a first year:
1)JFO
2)SFO
3)Capt

Thanks.

EO.

I know things have changed somewhat since I retired after 25 years with CX but I can tell you that the only smart thing I have ever done with money, was to buy my own house in Hong Kong. Cathay bought it for me several times with the rent allowance and the proceeds from the eventual sale netted me heaps more than my A scale provident fund payout.:ok:

Sad days...

Don't let it worry you SNS, just call up tryhard's previous posts and you'll understand the situation. Just ignore it.