14 June 2010

China scams 9 You thought estate agents were scummers?


This applies to ALL China, especially HK and Macau.

But consider this Los Angeles advert says 695sq ft right and you would expect something close to 695sq ft right (I do metres though). Another nod to the HPC crowd.


In HK a 600sqft flat is not going to be 600sqft at most it will be 85% of this i.e. 510ft if you are lucky. If you ain't and have a particularly nasty scummer estate agent you may get 396.5ft - 65% of the advertised space. But get charged the rent for 600sqft.

What the? How why!

Initially the construction firms are cheating scummy shits, firstly when you measure something lets say the size of a room, you put the tape measure on the wall then walk to the other side of the room once you get to the other wall of the room, you then take your measurement.

HK developers don't do this they put the tape measure on the outside of the building to start with and then pull it not until it meets the other wall but the other outside of the building. In effect the walls are included in the living space. Unless you are some kind of ethereal being how the hell can you include the walls in the living space?

The Sham Shui Po things are more honest to be erm honest, as the walls are made from 3mm plywood or metal sheets and as expected will be considered as part of the living space.

On top of this developers are extra scummers too, they will say oh yes the walls will be 1ft thick, they will change the design of the building so you can't measure it properly i.e. at ground floor level. Thus to measure this you have to play spider man. Thinner walls need more expensive building materials like more steel in the concrete. Construction firms in HK use thicker concrete to give the same strength but at lower cost which encroaches on the living space. So to start with your 600sq ft flat, now has 1.5ftx3~4 missing on account of the walls.

Once it has been built the construction company quickly liquidates its subsidary company completely removing all liability when the residents who move in think fuck me this is smaller than I imagined!

But to save face the new residents will rather than complain will say oh it's nice, and try to off load it onto a bigger sucker.





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