FEW PEOPLE LOVE property developers. In good times they pump up housing prices, and in slumps they whine to the Government, demanding it builds less subsidised housing to stimulate the market.
But now, after decades as powerless pawns in the property game, the worm has turned. A group of opportunists has found a way of getting something for nothing from the rich builders. They are the open-day freeloaders - and much as they want to, their reluctant benefactors can't do anything about them.
To lure home-buyers to their new housing estates in tough times, big developers have resorted to ploys such as providing free food and entertainment - the activities collectively called 'ka lin wah wui' which translates as a gala or open day. But instead of tempting just home buyers, their promotional goodies act as a magnet for a very different group of people: the freebie-hunters.
'They are an unexpected by-product,' admits a staff member at the sales and marketing department of New World Development.
The number of liggers is growing, he says. It is difficult to estimate what percentage of visitors are day-trippers, but agents believe that less than one per cent are real buyers.
At first property developers did not welcome these unexpected guests and some even chased them away by turning off the freebie tap.
In one case, the developer withdrew the free food, whisking away chicken wings from scruffy children who had flocked in from a nearby public housing estate. In another, celebrities were asked to stop singing when mobs of Filipino domestic helpers came to join the party.
