I have yet to meet Jake van der Kamp, since he chooses not to work from the South China Morning Post 's newsroom in Quarry Bay.
And yet his style is highly seductive, particularly the extent to which he often ignores conventional wisdom, the laboured number crunching of mere brokerage analysts, and obtrusive factoids in favour of his own interpretations.
As one of those asked to pinch hit for the celebrity journalist while he relaxes on a beach somewhere, I thought I might similarly take a crack at a personal obsession - the Hong Kong property market.
My thesis is that there is a vast conspiracy among Hong Kong landlords and developers to keep prices high despite pesky government reports that allege a 60 per cent decline in prices since the market peak of 1997.
What decline? In eight months of searching for a flat, not one landlord has dropped prices by more than HK$2,000 in the 'middle-class residential' category to which I aspire (the price brackets are between HK$15,000 and HK$40,000 per month).
While looking, I've been staying at the Helena May on Garden Road, a genteel late Victorian institution that closely resembles a boarding school.
I daily run past a modest flat on Bowen Road that has been empty since February. When I offered a price 12.5 per cent beneath the asking price, the owners refused, although recently an agent called to hiss: 'I think they're ready to bargain now' after losing six months' rent.
