Have not been writing for a long time as I was really busy and had a lot of trouble at Pakistan. Setting up an office in a foreign company is no joke. After getting the keys to the apartment at Al-Hafeez view, we had a terrible time trying to ascertain its validity. The real estate agent that serviced us for that deal sucked big time. Everything we asked for was met with a lot of complaints and unwillingness to help.
In the end, we decided to fore-go the property, even though we have paid the deposit and started some preliminary renovation works.
After a lot of hunting around, finally found another property. This is definitely a superior option. It is in a better location, looks a lot newer… and goes for only 22k Rupee per month. Ya… its a steal…. until I realize that another business owner just opposite me pays only 15k Rupee a month. Darn….
Funny Thing 1
The funny thing in Pakistan is that house prices are artificially high. If you walk into any building, you will see a lot of empty offices… waiting for tenant. Theoretically, based on our efficient market economy, these business owners will lower their rent till their properties could be rented out. However, due to the rocketing annual inflation rate of over 15% yearly, these owners also expect the prices of their property to appreciate accordingly. The people here are mainly using property as a store of value. In fact, contractually, all rental agreements are signed with an understanding of increasing 10% year-to-year.
As such, even those properties which are not rented… are demanding higher and higher rental rates… (or so I think…)
Funny Thing 2
Another very wierd thing about Pakistan is… they have super low interests rates for savings, i.e. <1%, but exceptionally high rates for loans, i.e. 13% for mortgage loans (backed by property). This is really strange. In a capital starved nation like Pakistan, the banks should pay higher interests rates to encourage more savings so that they have cheaper money to loan out… why such a high margin?
Anyway, this does not concern me. I just hope that the Pakistan Rupee will continue to depreciate by more than 10% year-on. Hehe.. this will mean that my rental will stay stationery…
Funny Thing 3
Today after getting my Wi-max internet connection, I realise yet another strange phenomena. By checking the internet speed at http://speedtest.net/
I realise that the bandwidth is very skewed at night for my Wimax account.
During the day, the bandwidth is about 1200kbps upload, 500kbps download… but at night… it turns really weird. I believe.. this has to do with the role of Pakistan as the offshore call center. During the night, when call center operations peak, there is a much higher requirement for uploads…. resulting in such a weird distribution of bandwidth.
I sincerely hope this is temporal… as there is no way I can make any Internet Phone calls with such bandwidths…
Just tried the bandwidth again at 12pm. How to support VOIP with only 42 kb/s?
Just realised the Wateen connection is really unstable. Sometimes, it works real well, i.e.
At such speeds not only is internet connection a lot faster… but it is also fast enough to support VOIP connections. Yeah… cheap calls to Singapore.