Speculation, not location, is the new watchword
A property's location used to be key to its value, but now speculators are guided by other factors
Location! Location! Location!" You may have heard this age-old real-estate wisdom when searching for a property. But is it the number one consideration?
A friend of mine has invested in residential properties for the past two decades but recently shifted to the commercial property market.
He was a believer in the conventional wisdom and took it as the primary rule to follow it when he made his first purchase of an office property six months ago.
At the time, he recalled, he received three offers from property agents.
One was an office unit at the Chevalier Commercial Centre in Kowloon Bay, which is 10 minutes away from the Kowloon Bay MTR station and was priced at HK$5,700 per square foot. The other units were a bit further from the MTR station. One was a unit at Enterprise Square Phase One and another one was at the Nan Fung Commercial Centre. They are about 20 minutes walk from the MTR station. The selling prices of these two properties at the time were below HK$5,000, reflecting their less favourable locations.
As a believer of this conventional "location, location, location" wisdom, the friend chose the unit at the Chevalier Commercial Centre.