Singapore vs. Hong Kong: Which Is More Expensive?

[Angelight]

Thanks, 3Boys! My sentiments exactly. :goodpost:


I was merely speaking up for my country and kena criticised for being 'narrow-minded'. :roll:

3Boys:

WeiHan:

[quote=\"Angelight\"]WeiHan, your expat friend said Spore has 'no soul' just becos our nation is so squeaky clean and green, crime rate low, our pple are law-abiding and don't go on strikes at every little provocation, then I just have to say that he doesn't know the true meaning of 'soul'.

Spore is not perfect, but I'm fiercely protective towards my nation. And whoever says Spore has no soul can choose not to live or work here. JMHO.

Don't make yourselves sound so narrow minded and can't take any criticism. As I have wrote, the expats did say that Singaporeans are generally very nice people. He was just saying that Singapore seems artificially built up like a fantasy land specially for the expats. It sacrifices too much of its unique characteristics to achieve that. As he said, if not because of the distance to work, he will prefer to live in the heartland to experience the real neighbourhood instead of staying near CBD area. Of course, the soul part also meant that people are afraid to voice out-meaning there is a repressive atmosphere.

Haha, what hypocrisy on the part of your expat friend. Why be deterred by the distance to work? Overseas, many people drive 45 mins to an hour to get to the office. If he lives in Bishan and takes the train, he will be at Raffles Place in about the same time or less. Tell him, move to HDB and experience the true heartlander commute on the MRT. Talk is cheap my friend. He has some big ego, as if all of this was done for the benefit of expats. Yah, there are plenty of downtown condos that are expat enclaves, but who owns those condos? Did they not decide to congregate there themselves? What would he prefer, Singapore to be messy and wild for HIS benefit? Puhleez! I like SG for its neatness and order, really good for families with young kids, who are the TRUE beneficiaries. I would not have it any other way, expat preference or not.[/quote]

[LOLMum]

WeiHan:

I often hear that Singapore is a nice place to raise kids. I wonder why is this so?

as a parent, i dont have to worry about my kids having fun with marijuana and other hardcore drugs, drinking heavily or having casual sex here in singapore.

i dont have to worry about class/schoolmates bringing a gun to school.

i dont have to worry about gang recruitment in or outside school.

i dont have to worry much about their safety unless you have an idiot of a driver behind the wheel.

i dont have to worry that my dd is not going to be homecoming queen or my ds is not the star quarterback as expected.

bullying and some of the above do happen in singapore but overall it is a small percentage and school stress in every country is different. we just dont know much about them.

[Rivevae]

There is no country on earth that's too good or too bad, neither are there too clean or too dirty to live in. Bottomline, we are not living in a perfect world.


I hope this forum is all about exchanging constructive views and expanding our life's perspectives from all walks of life / experiences. We can argue until the cows come home but like it or not there is absolutely no right or wrong answer to a comment. It's just about opinions, not spikeful attacks or who's more superior stemming from an ego issue.

If we could be more open minded about the world (or words) you will realize there are rooms for improvement in our own country too. Eg, how we as country's \"stakeholders\" could influence in one way or another to contain the escalating costs of living (COE - does it hv to cost us $$$$$ that's well exceeding a mfr's car price), ensure equal opportunity and not subject to any form of discrimination in our employment/business/school options (ie, regardless of age, gender, race, working mother with young children or not, # of certs, whether you carry a spade kate or not & etc), how we could make NTUC fairprice more transparent in their pricings just to live up to their vision/mission they first started to be? Until today I am still very puzzled why S$ strengthened against US$ by leaps & bounds and yet oranges, apples or peanut butter from the US no price decrease but increase...pay less sell high?? Unfortunately our legal system does not encourage or respect citizen's voices/petitions....so we will continue to leave it to the political elites or policy makers to run our lives.

So....是好话废话还是llls,随你怎么想都是一口子\"话\"。

[30plus]

I lived in HK and SG for about 10 year each. So I guess I can offer some views.


Comparing the two cities:
Good point for HK: more liberal, 4 seasons, more choices
Good point for SG: much bigger living space

For people to compare prices, now house hold items in HK are cheaper than SG, mainly due to appreciation of SGD. But HK property is still much more expensive than SG. I bought a condo there end of last year. It is a 10 year old condo at Tung Chung (kind of Pasir Ris equiv). 700 sqf costs HKD 2.8M. Mind you, there is no FH property in HK. This one land lease is only 50 years.

People talk about education problem. It makes me recall a story. I was tutor of a girl many years ago in HK. Initially, I taught maths. One day, the girl looked very nervous. I asked her and she said she had Chemistry exam very soon but she was very weak on it. So I flipped her book and used my remaining Chemistry knowledge to give her some tips. She became top 5 in that exam. After that, I became her tutor on Maths, Physics, Chemistry, and almost everything.

I taught her about 2 years and she went to US for JC. Half year later, she came back HK for holiday. Her mother called me saying she insisted me to go for a few tuition sessions. Since someone was willing to pay me talking, I went there. I asked her what she was studying in US. Then she said they studied periodic table in Chemistry class. The assignment given was: pick an element and find a way to promote that element. I stunned there.

My point is that the trainings we get in school are very different. I don't want to bring up the argument whether FT here are really good. But apparently more Ang Moh sitting at higher positions. You probably will agree they have better presentation skills in general. That is related to the trainings they have. So, our schools are not really focused on skills that will have bigger impact on future working life.

[WeiHan]

1 SG$ is equal to 6.46 HK$ at the moment.


So the HK$2.8 condo is about S$433K. This is not too expensive compare to Singapore. A 20+ years old condo (99 years lease), for example, at CCK, about 800 sqft, can cost more than S$700K. Singapore property price has really catched up with HK’s.

[verykiasu2010]

WeiHan:

1 SG$ is equal to 6.46 HK$ at the moment.


So the HK$2.8 condo is about S$433K. This is not too expensive compare to Singapore. A 20+ years old condo (99 years lease), for example, at CCK, about 800 sqft, can cost more than S$700K. Singapore property price has really catched up with HK's.

the exchange rate a year ago is 5.7, so HK$2.8m = S$491k.

HK ppty size is gross, around 20% is public area, so net area is 560 sq ft

therefore = S$877 psf for the remaining 40 years lease, = S$22 psf/year

assuming the CCK condo has 75 years remaining lease : S$700k/800sq ft/75 years = S$11.7 psf/year

so, roughly speaking, HK property prices is about 2x that of SG, not bad considering it was like 3x some years ago

just my way of looking at it. nobody needs to agree with me

[WeiHan]

Is probably less than 2X now. Exchange rate in December was 1 to 5.9. That CCK condo is selling at around 750k now.

[Rivevae]

WeiHan:

Is probably less than 2X now. Exchange rate in December was 1 to 5.9. That CCK condo is selling at around 750k now.

Property is after all an investment. Cost of living excl property (I regard these as expenses) in Singapore is abnormally :slapshead:

What has our strong S$ done to our surging consumer price index? Defying gravity?? For a country relying heavily on imported goods? :stupid:

[jtoh]

30plus:

I asked her what she was studying in US. Then she said they studied periodic table in Chemistry class. The assignment given was: pick an element and find a way to promote that element. I stunned there.

My point is that the trainings we get in school are very different. I don't want to bring up the argument whether FT here are really good. But apparently more Ang Moh sitting at higher positions. You probably will agree they have better presentation skills in general. That is related to the trainings they have. So, our schools are not really focused on skills that will have bigger impact on future working life.

It's true that angmos have better presentation skills. As you say it's part of their training. Although in my course of work I've come across angmos who talk a lot, are rather convincing, but if you listen to them carefully they're not saying that much nor making much sense. Our kids these days are exposed to a lot more presentation skills, even at the primary school level. Hopefully this will stand them in good stead when they're up against the more vocal angmos in the job market.

[Chenonceau]

jtoh:

It's true that angmos have better presentation skills. As you say it's part of their training. Although in my course of work I've come across angmos who talk a lot, are rather convincing, but if you listen to them carefully they're not saying that much nor making much sense. Our kids these days are exposed to a lot more presentation skills, even at the primary school level. Hopefully this will stand them in good stead when they're up against the more vocal angmos in the job market.

Heh! I do agree sometimes. There are silly Caucasians just as there are silly Singaporeans. It's easier to tell silly Caucasian from silly Singaporean though because Singaporeans keep quiet and so you can't assess.