There’s something entertaining about the FT running a piece extolling the virtues of living on Lamma Island. Under the headline “Where No Cars Go,” Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore waxes lyrical about the peace and tranquility to be found just 30 minutes ferry ride from Central.
She finds Lamma: “characterised by overgrown jungle and dramatic beaches”–well yes, the power station can look dramatic in certain lights, in a George Orwellian sort of way, its belching chimneys looming over Power Station Beach, as they do. Hong Kong Island is a “crowded urban mecca of shopping malls and skyscrapers,” she says.
By contrast, villages like those on Lamma offer “serene surroundings and outdoor living for cheaper prices.” She obviously visited on a day when someone silenced the dogs, the “VVs”-noisy, polluting, stinky village vehicles-were on strike and the tour groups were at the Big Buddha.
What made me chuckle most was the lumping together of Clear Water Bay, Sai Kung and Lamma under cheaper alternatives to Hong Kong island. The gentlefolk of Clear Water Bay and Sai Kung might not relish being tied in with all those teachers and left-behind hippies on Lamma. She doesn’t even mention Lantau or Cheung Chau. It’s funny how life seems through the prism of someone who’s just visiting.
She prices village houses between HK$6 and $50 million. I don’t know in what corner of the forgotten New Territories you can locate one for HK$6m and I’m not convinced too many change hands for HK$50m. On Lamma you’re talking about HK$8-$10m, same on Lantau. Sai Kung and Clear Water Bay of course are a different story and the main photo shows a tasteful four-bedroom souped-up village house with pool on the market for HK$78 million. Does anyone really pay that sort of crazy price for a village house, anywhere? Clear Water Bay price tags usually come in around HK$30m-plus.
Maybe she’s right. I was asked HK$29,000 per month rental for two floors, ground and middle, of a three-story Lamma village house this week. And it was not even 700 squire feet - it was 400 sq ft per floor.