Hong Kong’s real estate market is one of a kind… in the worst way. Our living conditions are famed across the world for being unaffordable and cramped, but one couple is valiantly seeking to challenge the status quo by exporting local real estate practices to sunny San Francisco.
(You know, because sharing is caring.)
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Hong Kong-born engineer Tina Lam and her husband, Taiwan-born Michael Cheng, bought a private street called Presidio Terrace — and are planning to charge its wealthy tenants to park on their own street.
How wealthy, you ask? Well, the private street, which is a “very swank” (SFGate’s words, not ours) gated community consisting of 35 megamillion-dollar mansions, has counted senators and mayors as residents over the years and has a guard stationed at its entrance 24/7.
At only USD90,100 (HKD705,000), Lam and Cheng got it at a steal — and it’s all thanks to a clerical error. Apparently, Presidio Terrace’s homeowners association have failed to pay their mandatory USD14-a-year (HKD110) property tax for the past three decades, racking up a USD994 (HKD7,777) debt in back taxes, penalties and interest. The association’s lawyer has since argued that the error was due to their bills being mailed to an accountant who hadn’t been in their employ since the ‘80s.
As a result of the debt, the city of San Francisco put the entirety of the street’s “common ground” (the street, sidewalks, garden islands, palm trees, etc) up for auction online in 2015. Despite the fact that Lam and Cheng purchased the land two years ago, homeowners reportedly didn’t realize the ground beneath their feet had been sold until they were asked if they’d like to buy it back two months ago.
Unsurprisingly, the residents are none too pleased. On top of suing Lam and Cheng and the city of San Francisco, the homeowners have appealed to the city’s Board of Supervisors, who will hold a hearing on whether the sale should be revoked this October.
Lam and Cheng don’t seem deterred by the residents’ reluctance to comply, however. The Chronicle reports that the couple could bypass the homeowners entirely and rent out the street’s 120 premium parking spaces to people outside of the community — a classic Hong Kong landlord move if we’ve ever seen one.
Ironically, when the Presidio Terrace development was first advertised in 1906, it was described as a safe haven for white people to escape the “invasion” of Japanese and Chinese people in San Francisco. According to the Virtual Museum of San Francisco, an original ad for the neighborhood read, “There is only one spot in San Francisco where only Caucasians are permitted to buy or lease real estate or where they may reside. That place is Presidio Terrace.” That remained true until 1948, when a Supreme Court case banned the enforcement of racial covenants in housing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this article misstated the HKD Lam and Cheng paid for the street. We apologize for the error.
