Serviced Apartments and Serviced Residences
Recently, the service apartments and serviced residences have been quite actively talked about in recent months. This is partly due to the recent spate of new condo launches in and around the city which are either service apartments or serviced residences.
Another reason for this is the decision of KL City Hall (DBKL) and a few other state local councils to temporarily suspend the approval of new condo projects on commercial property due to some rising concerns. One of them is the protection of the buyers, since they do not fall into the HDA.
The Edge ran an interesting article on this issue, and they’ve clearly defined the difference between ‘serviced apartment’ and ‘service residences’:
The term serviced apartments and serviced residences are often used interchangeably but both types are marketed differently, serviced apartments are hotel liked properties for long time staying guests while serviced residences are stratified housing units built on commercial land.
There are stratified housing developments built on commercial land that are sold as serviced apartments. In this instance, although the developer has opted not to use the term ‘serviced residence’ in marketing the property, this is strictly a residential offering in the sense that there are no hospitality services offered.
Below is a summary of the serviced apartment supply in KL, Selangor and overall in Malaysia for the first three quarters of 2005, given in units.
| Existing | 1Q2005 | 2Q2005 | 3Q2005 |
| KL | 4,422 | 4,422 | 4,422 |
| Selangor | 1,989 | 2,149 | 2,501 |
| Malaysia | 15,660 | 16,500 | 16,852 |
| Under Construction | |||
| KL | 2,289 | 3,185 | 3,710 |
| Selangor | 4,174 | 4,434 | 4,448 |
| Malaysia | 9,960 | 10,786 | 11,569 |
| Starts | |||
| KL | 686 | 525 | 627 |
| Selangor | 280 | 366 | 800 |
| Malaysia | 1,132 | 1,135 | 1,543 |
| Planned | |||
| KL | 1,900 | 2,225 | 3,094 |
| Selangor | 3,673 | 3,673 | 3,903 |
| Malaysia | 8,712 | 10,507 | 13,198 |
| New Plans | |||
| KL | 1,089 | 1,196 | 1,496 |
| Selangor | 382 | 1,634 | 1,030 |
| Malaysia | 1,731 | 2,910 | 4,234 |
