Thought today will be a low paced day. Was having coffee with my Cha Bo when we saw one piece of good news!
Yeah! Pakistan is back to the Commonwealth countries. Well, I guess this means that Pakistanis can enter Singapore without applying for Visas! This is really good news
A real estate agent called us today and volunteered to take us to look at a few offices. So we got on our tu-tu car again… and went to 2 more new places. The first place we go to was Al-Hafeez Suites. It is located near to Al-Hafeez Towers, on MM Alam road.
It was pretty nice with good furnishings. Only problem is… it did not quite have a big enough room, or rather.. the big room costs a premium. At 670 sq feet, it goes for 18k Rupee. However, for the 1200 sq feet, it goes for 45k rupee. But for the furnishing is good.
After that, we moved on to Eden Towers. At Eden Towers, there were rooms available from level 2, 4, 5. Prices for level 2, 700 sq feet, goes for 35k rupee, level 4 goes for 30k rupee. Pretty nice location. Good thing about the location is that it has 5 lifts… so getting up to the office should be easier.
Hmmm.. our real estate agent still has not called us yet. So we decided to go to the banks and check out the mortgage. After being directed to a few places, we are convinced of 2 things:
- The banks were pretty comparative and offered similar rates across the board
- Interest rates for bank loans are ridiculously high, i.e. 14%
Denise commented about their ridiculous profit margins, i.e. giving only 1% for savings deposit and charging over 14% for loans… The loan officers only smiled at us and said that Pakistan was a risky country… and businesses often go bust. The rewards had to be there to commensurate the risks…
After that, we just hanged out at Mac Donalds to wait for our agent…. we baked there, ‘cos despite the air-conditioning, it was unbearably hot. Towards evening, the agent finally called and we adjourned to the office. Along the way, we stopped over at LandMark Building. Heard that they had cheap offices there… so I couldn’t resist taking a peak.
Hmmm… seems like these aren’t exactly offices but run down apartment. But still, it goes at a dirt cheap price, i.e. 1600 square feet at 25k Rupee. Reminded me of the Avenues Nepal who run their business in a house.
After taking a peak at the LandMark Building we popped over to Hafeez Center to change some money. Whoops …. SGD appreciating against PKR. Hope it stays this way! Got 48.5 PKR for my SGD. Yippee!
Human Camels at Hafeez Center
From there, we adjourned to Hafeez Shopping Mall to meet our real estate agent. I was utterly disappointed with him. It seems that he had the news of our offer not going through and did not inform us… in the end we had to make a trip down to his shop for no good reason. He should have just informed us over the phone and let us make the decision.
There are a few other reasons that I am not happy about:
- Showed us only 2 locations in 2 days. Did not give us a lot of choice.
- Did not take any initiative to show us more properties today. Waited until 5pm when the deal did not go through… before letting us know.
This is doubly frustrating as we do not really have much time in Pakistan. I am the best man for my friends’ wedding in early June… and I definitely need to be back by month end… We still have the renovation and HR matters to go through…
Anyway, he showed us one more property which was pretty cool. It was going for 35k. I am okay with the price, but Denise wanted to think it through. Anyway, the other agent called us to follow up with us… and promised to show us even more properties tomorrow when we get the rented car.
Will settle everything tomorrow. Definite.. and move on to other matters….