回复：回复：moving to HongKong

Well, you know it's pretty hard to give your questions a fair answer, cause every family has its own living standard and life style.

As someone already said, life in HK is totall different than that in the States. One of my friend's family happened to relocated to HK in 1997, when housing price was sky high. The wife one day went to look for a flat to rent. The agent showed her some apartments on HK island, those tranditional upper-middle class residency area. When he told her the monthly rental price, she asked if it was for a year. Deeply disappinted, she went back to the States, leaving behind three words to describe HK: too expensive, too crowded,and too polluted.

Back in 1997, the property price was at its peak. The rental price for the flat we rented at Braemar Hill(near 1500sq) was 70k HKD. We rented from 2001 till 2007, the price started from 39K, all the way down to 29k douring SARS period, then went back to 40K in 2007. We terminated the lease when the landlord asked for 50K in the summer of 2007. 2007 was another year of property rally. I believe both the sale and rental price are reduced by 10% to 30% since then.

Due to the global wise economy crisis, it's now a good time to get a bargin.

I'm not familiar with Kowloon side. In general, like the States, there are good neighbourhood, as well as bad one, largely depending on the schools in the district. You should try to learn more about it, since you plan to send your kids to a local school.

I lived in HK from 1998 to 2003, and still spend summer breaks and holidays there. When back in HK, we got two kids, one went to a local school(near 2k/month), one to an international shcool(around 5k/month), two maids, renting a 1500 sqf flat in a good district. I think that we had the same life style like most middle class families. We had a car, and I drove my kids to school, my hu*****and to work, and then to my work place everyday. I could drive to work only because I worked at HKU, where the monthly parking fee was only 100. It would cost you 2 to 4 thousand if you choose commercial parking lots. Plus 2 to 4k you have to pay for parking at your own residence, driving in HK is really not a good deal.

Anyway, just give you an idea about household utility expenses. I'm not quite sure about the recent years' price change, but ti shouldn't vary too much.

Electricity: 1.5 to 3k depends on the seasons (we also had electronic heating for hot water)
Gas: 200 to 300
Water: 200 to 300
Home phone: 100
longdistance: 200 to 400
mobile phone: 100 for me, 500 for my hu*****and
cable TV: 300
Internet service: 100 to 150

Food: 5 to 8k
Dinning out: 5k
Kids' related expenses(excluding tuition): 5k

Others are for household items and clothes. We seldom go for big brands, and often wait for clearance sale. Even though, I think that we spent around 100k a month.

HK is an expensive place, because there are always places to sped your money. It's really hard to say how much it needed to have a comfortable life in Hong Kong.

所有跟帖： 

• 谁来定义一下Hong Kong middle class family -znprc- ♂ (662 bytes) () 03/23/2009 postreply 21:36:50

• 10万就很够中产了 看新闻说的中产应该都不到10万 -快雪时晴- ♂ (0 bytes) () 03/24/2009 postreply 03:01:51

• 我印象是家庭月入7万为线 -周梦蝶- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/24/2009 postreply 06:53:31

• 7万？有这么高吗？　就在美国这也算top１０的数字了.　 -somersetgarden- ♀ (137 bytes) () 03/24/2009 postreply 10:01:09

• 也许我搞错了吧，政府计算社会阶层的时候 -周梦蝶- ♀ (55 bytes) () 03/26/2009 postreply 06:36:26

• http://paper.wenweipo.com/2007/07/08/FI0707080022.htm -tiantianqq- ♂ (177 bytes) () 03/27/2009 postreply 05:49:00

• 京港一线写的是upper class了，不算middle class，当然还有extra-upper, super-upper啦 -tiantianqq- ♂ (0 bytes) () 03/24/2009 postreply 17:35:46