Who can win Hong Kong’s real estate? Blogger’s ‘real prices’ Monopoly board highlights homeownership pipe dream
Hong Kong native Justin Cheuk also highlights cross-border traders and tainted water pipes in Chance and Community Chest cards
This might just be Monopoly money, but even with the most valuable currency these amounts would not be able to buy you property in Hong Kong.
The first version of Hong Kong Monopoly in 1991 listed Victoria Peak at $400, so the tenfold price hike is more than believable.
Justin Cheuk, a 22-year-old postgrad law student, recently created a “real prices” version of Hong Kong Monopoly, basing averages for price-per-square-foot on figures between September and November last year. As a result, The Peak is valued at more than HK$44,000.
READ MORE: How Monopoly came to dominate board games
“I thought the iconic [Monopoly] image would be a useful guide on property, something that dominates Hong Kong lives,” he said, adding that last year marked the 80th anniversary for the family game.
Resembling the original game, Cheuk’s Monopoly board uses locations based on the 2007 Hong Kong edition of the game.
He admitted he took liberties in changing the board to give it a more authentic Hong Kong feel.
Instead of Free Parking – unheard of in Hong Kong – the space was replaced with Free Wi-fi. The standard “Go” salary was raised from HK$200 to HK$14,480, Hong Kong’s median income.
Cheuk said he settled on the median income of a family for that space because “a single individual’s is too inadequate”.
“I thought best to at least create the illusion that we can all afford this somehow,” he explained.
Water Works, originally HK$150, was turned into drinking water supplier East River Water, which would almost certainly instantly bankrupt a player at a price of HK$42 billion.
READ MORE: What you can buy for the price of a Hong Kong flat? Italian castle, Sydney harbour-view apartment or Dublin townhouse
Cheuk said another challenge in putting together his version was a lack of easily available real estate data for several original Monopoly locations, including Ngong Ping and Chek Lap Kok. While these two locations were substituted, the lack of data led to large residential areas such as Yuen Long being omitted.
Though he admitted the board wasn’t meant to be played, the Hasbro-based “game” still had Chance and Community Chest cards.
On his original blog posted last month, Cheuk noted that a square foot in Tin Shui Wai cost as much as an iPhone. Compared to the original board, where prison could be a sanctuary, Stanley Prison on his board was more expensive than 21 other properties.
“[They] were a mixture of my personal experiences and comments on my Facebook page,” he said. “That’s how we got to ‘iPhone Tax’ and ‘Free-Wifi’ squares.”
Cheuk avoided topical and overtly political news as they could seem dated very quickly, he said, adding: “There are so many more crazy interesting things happening beyond politics anyway.”
