Buyers who survived Kowloon prices treat the Mactan mood slump like a closing-down sale
Hong Kong Bargain Hunters Fly to Cebu
Retired clerks from Sham Shui Po treat a nervous condominium market like the last day of a sale
CEBU CITY – Mrs. Winnie Chau-Lim, 58, a retired bank clerk from Sham Shui Po, landed at Mactan-Cebu International Airport on Saturday carrying a calculator, a folding fan, a printed spreadsheet and a plan to buy a condominium at what she calls “the sad price.”
Her flat in Hong Kong measures 280 square feet. When a Cebu broker showed her the bathroom of a two-bedroom unit overlooking the strait, she measured it with her phone, compared it with her kitchen at home and had to sit down on the edge of the bathtub for a moment.
“In Hong Kong, a bathroom this size has a waiting list and a doorman,” she said. “Here they apologise because the market is in a bad mood. I have been in a bad mood since 1997. I know a bargain when I see one.”
Why a Mood Became a Discount
The mood in question arrived last week, after reports that the Philippine Department of Justice is looking into allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until this year. The Guardian’s Sunday report sets out what is known; the short version is that no charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Investigating anything that might harm a child is a duty, not a punchline.
The punchline is the property market’s reaction. As Manila News reported from a Mactan showroom, at https://manilanews.ph/cebu-brokers-blame-foreign-scandal-for-slow-condo-sales/, foreign buyers who once asked about parking and the lift now ask about the neighbours, and one broker spent an entire Sunday with three brochures and a cup of coffee that went cold before anybody signed anything.
Hong Kong buyers do not ask about the neighbours. In Hong Kong the neighbours are on the other side of a wall so thin you can hear them change their minds.
A City That Already Has a Map of Awkward Flats
Hong Kong property hunters have long tolerated stigma in exchange for a discount. Flats where something unfortunate once happened are traded at a markdown, and a certain kind of buyer seeks them out with the dedication of a birdwatcher.
“In Hong Kong we have whole websites listing unlucky flats,” said Ronald Tse, a retired estate agent from Mong Kok who flew in on the same plane as Mrs. Chau-Lim. “A Cebu flat that is only awkward? That is not a problem. That is a luxury. Awkward is the Hong Kong national mood. Awkward with a balcony is a promotion.”
The Hong Kong Association of People Who Have Read a Spreadsheet surveyed 300 members on the Cebu slump. Of those, 71 percent said they would buy a unit “if the discount was real,” 22 percent said they would buy it “if the discount was only in the broker’s head but the bathroom was real,” and 7 percent wanted to know whether the building’s management office closed for lunch.
The Brokers Do Not Want to Sell Cheap
There is a problem. Nobody is actually cutting prices. In July, Colliers was still describing Cebu as the leading property hub of the Visayas and Mindanao, and local agents are holding firm.
“The mood is cheap. The unit is not,” said one Lapu-Lapu City broker, Arnel Sumalinog, who has spent the week explaining this distinction to people holding calculators. “Mrs. Winnie wants a discount for the mood. I told her the mood is free. Please take as much mood as you like. The condo is P9.8 million.”
Mrs. Chau-Lim considered this. “In Hong Kong the mood also costs money,” she said. “There is a management fee for it.”
Kowloon Comics Weigh In
The trip has already become material in the comedy rooms of Kowloon, where retirees flying to Cebu with folding fans is now a recognised genre.
- Dickson Fung: “My auntie flew to Cebu to buy a sad condo. She came back with a happy condo, a sunburn and a list of complaints about the airport dim sum. That is a successful holiday.”
- Cherry Yau: “Cebu brokers say foreign buyers are nervous. Hong Kong buyers are never nervous. We are only ever furious or eating.”
- Alvin Ng: “A British pensioner in Cebu has to get a letter from his vicar. A Hong Kong buyer has to get a letter from his mother saying she approves of the kitchen. One of those letters is harder to get.”
- Stephanie Lo: “Two bedrooms, sea view, P9.8 million. In Hong Kong that is the price of a parking space and an argument.”
The British and American versions of the panic are, if anything, more anxious. The London Prat met a retired Reigate building-society man assembling referees for a flat viewing, and an American realtor in Mactan says her open houses now run two hours, most of it unrequested alibis about pickleball. Mrs. Chau-Lim read both on the plane and said the Americans “talk too much and the British bring too many folders.”
The Psychology of Discount Hunting
Researchers would say both groups are victims of the same mental shortcut. The 1973 paper on the availability heuristic showed that a vivid example persuades people a thing is common, even when the boring statistics say otherwise. Hong Kong buyers simply run the shortcut backwards: one vivid headline persuades them a discount is common, even when the broker says no.
“It is not psychology,” Mrs. Chau-Lim said. “It is shopping. Psychology is what you call shopping when you lose.”
A Deal, Sort Of
By Sunday evening the two sides had reached an understanding. The price would not move. The developer would, however, throw in two years of association dues, a parking space and a promise that the building’s guard would greet Mrs. Chau-Lim in Cantonese, which he has been practising from a phone app and which currently sounds like a man ordering a very confident bowl of noodles.
“It is not a discount,” Sumalinog said. “It is hospitality.”
“It is a discount,” said Mrs. Chau-Lim, and signed. She has already sent a photograph of the bathroom to her sister in Tsuen Wan, who has not replied, which Mrs. Chau-Lim has decided to take as a compliment.
In Hong Kong, she noted on her way back to the airport, a sea view is something you rent by the hour from a hotel lobby. In Cebu it comes with the flat, the breeze and a guard who is learning Cantonese one noodle at a time.
For Cantonese wit closer to home, this primer on Chinese humour sets the scene. The British end of the saga lives at prat.uk, the American end at bohiney.com, and for property gloom with a Home Counties accent, NewsBiscuit never disappoints.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/