[yyzflyalot]

Hi, I will be moving to Hong Kong in March and would like to find an apartment to rent in Causeway Bay as that is where my office will be. I do not need a luxury condominum, just a clean, safe building. Do Expats live in some of the buildings listed on gohome.com? There seem to be a lot of apartments listed between 9,000 and 15,000 per month. Are these apartments clean, do I have to worry about insect problems? I curently live in a 500sq feet apartment so I am not concerned with size. Some of the addresses are: Chuang's on the park, Percival House, Pearl City Mansion Block C, Bright Star Mansion, are these building up to basic western standards?

[freeier]

one thing all of u have to know. gohome is not really that 'up to date'. it does an automatic renewal of any posting by agents after 1 period ends, so if the agent did not go into the system to update it as 'rented', the old prices will stay.

[dougp]

Most of the ads on GoHome seem to be just plain fake - they're there to get you to contact the agent and nothing more. Not only are the prices lower than reality, but in a lot of cases if you call you'll find there's actually no such apartment available.

Hong Kong Homes seems a bit more "real":

www.hongkonghomes.com

[KnowItAll]

Be warned though .. we've had lots of not so positive feedback about the agents from hong kong homes. Use the photos as a reference, make sure you check out the place and don't sign anything that you don't wnat to

[DaveD]

I also used this GoHome website a year ago and found no fake ads at all. I have seen altogether 10 to 12 flats, and all information / prices given were correct...

[KnowItAll]

Dave -- the problem happens when the estate agents upload bulk listings ... there is no quality assurance process that happens at this stage with some agencies.

[ct1]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

Be warned though .. we've had lots of not so positive feedback about the agents from hong kong homes. Use the photos as a reference, make sure you check out the place and don't sign anything that you don't wnat to

I can back this statement up. We were showed apartments in the $15-$20k. I then saw local agents advertising the same properties in the $10-15k range. I know HKHomes need their cut but if you know the area you want to live in then it pays to go direct to the local agents in that area. In the end that is what we did and I would say we saved $5k on what we thought we would need to pay.