Investment

I have been living my expat life for 19 years now.  It was never the plan to stay away from home for so long in fact these days the place that I call home has become Hong Kong, so the longer I am away from England the less I miss it.  Don't get me wrong I do love going back to England and still get those pangs of guilt about leaving it especially when I think about the beautiful scenery of Yorkshire and, obviously, Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield and the Metro Centre in Newcastle!

During our first year of expat living in Saudi Arabia we met people who had different experiences of living abroad.  They all had advice for us ranging from where to buy those necessary items that are missed so much (plain flour to make Yorkshire Puddings) to how to save your hard earned cash and prepare for a decadent early retirement. 

Also during that first year people told us that we would never return to the UK now that we had had a taste of what else is available.  Also that we should be aware that the domestic staff we paid to clean up after us would be sending their money back to Nepal or the Philippines or Sri Lanka to support a large extended family and buy land and property whereas we would end up with some nice holiday memories and some fancy electrical goods. 

I never believed that advice at the time but as the years have panned out it has become perfectly true.  We have only lived in the UK for 18 months since 1989.  Each time we have employed a cleaner they have bought property or land in their home country and managed to support their family while we have had a few fabulous holidays and now have a jolly nice LCD telly and an ipod nano.  Domestic workers employed in the homes of most expat families are from third world countries and their money buys a lot more than it does for us back in our home country.

So in an attempt to prepare for that decadent early retirement which is getting further and further away instead of closer and closer we took advice from our friendly financial adviser (Terry Hart) who looked at our situation and said in no uncertain terms that we were 'squandering a financial opportunity that we have here in Honkers' and that we should start a savings plan and buy some property instead of paying rent (thanks Tezza!). 

We took his advice and later this month we will become the owners of 2 adjoining 700sq' flats in Sai Kung which we intend to knock into one space and completely refurbish.  The price of property in Hong Kong is extortionate and I can't help feeling we could have bought a castle in Yorkshire for the same money but we don't live in Yorkshire, we live here.

The work will start very soon and we hope to be in by the middle of August.  Here are the 'before' pictures and there will be 'during' and 'after' pictures to follow.  I feel a reality TV show coming on... 

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[tulani]

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