Property Malaysia

The first phase to this project was launched some time back (we did a preview of this here before) and the developers are gearing up for the second and last phase within the next month or so.

This project was previously owned by Talam before their spectacular fall from grace (or should we say descent into darkness…), with construction giant IJM coming in to buy out the more promising parcels of land within Talam’s vast landbank in Klang Valley, and Monte Bayu was one of the few. The latter (and their aggrieved housebuyers) would have hoped for IJM to rescue Talam and Kumpulan Europlus, thereby injecting the much needed cash to revived all or most the ailing projects, but it would seem that IJM are fast losing interest to sign the dotted line. Rumour has it that they’ve since found out about numerous technical and authority problems with most of Talam’s so-called ‘can easily launch soon‘ projects, this has probably not helped the pending deal. Besides, it looks like IJM will be channeling their financial resources to buy out their rival Road Builder.

So this plot of land is located on the slopes of a hill, affording and excellent view of the KL city skyline on one side and greenery on the other side. There are plans to develop some landed units with the remainder of the land, but that would probably be some time in the future. Right now, they are working on the foundation of the building and the condo is expected to be handed over mid 2009. While hillside developments may strike concern with buyers these days (not to mention the neighbours), the developers are quick to point out that the condo is sited on a very strong granite hill, plus being the premier building contractor in the country, they are experienced enough to handle it, unlike some two-bit penny pinching contractor.

We tend to agree with this conclusion, taking a drive up to the site, you can clearly see the existing granite rock face which was exposed many years ago when they building the apartments on the way leading up to Monte Bayu. However, we must emphasize that this does not qualify anything, the developer is still very much responsible to adhere to good engineering and building principles, and buyers are encouraged to personally check out the location and ask pertinent questions to them.

To get to this place, turn off the MRR2 at the Jalan Kuari interchange in Cheras, and after driving in for about 2km, you’ll see the sales office. On the hill behind, you can clearly see the huge Monte Bayu billboard located at the 7.85acre site (see photos below). On the road going up the hill, you’ll pass by some light industrial lots, and existing low cost apartments. Some people tend to think of Cheras in a particular way, especially this area near Kampung Baru Cheras. Although this place isn’t as notoriously jammed as the newer areas of Cheras, this isn’t a place most people perceive as a growth or investment area.

According to the salespeople, the hill is part of a government forest reserve.

Below: Some photos taken recently.

Because of the rocky sub-terrain on the hillside, the building has visible quite high stilts, giving it a ‘Genting’ look. This results in features you don’t normally see in other condos – like some floors being lower than the road level (which didn’t turn out to be very popular) and since no sub-structure floors were constructed, there is a massive 7-storey parking annexe to cater for the residents.

This condo is targeted at the entry level market, with minimalistic high density units and competitive pricing. There are only 2 unit types, Type A (830sq.ft) and B1(1,135sq.ft). The earlier launched Block B has 14 floors per unit, whereas the coming Block A 14. Units are either facing towards KL, or the other direction towards Cheras. Some are pool view, too. Due to having so many units per floor, some are intermediate units, and some are corner units with 2 sides of view. However, Block B has a special unit with 3 sides of frontage every floor.

Type A (830sq.ft) has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. No miad or store room. Both baths are equally small, and the yard is about the same size. The rooms are not as small as you’d expect from this unit size. There’s is a balcony. Type B1(1,135sq.ft) is a more spacious version of Type A.

With the unit layout, Type A is more suited for bachelors and renters, especially those looking for a cheap place to stay that is near to the city. That would make the minimalist design and finishing sensible. The view is an added bonus. Type B1, with the larger master bedroom and attaching bath, and would also be the same, but this may also attract small families.

We like the fact that the developer is offering two parking bays per unit, this will reduce (not eliminate) the number of illegal parkers along the road outside the condo so common with other places.

With the large podium above the parking structure, the developer has ample space to put lots of stuff like swimming pools, basketball courts, playground, indoor badminton hall and landscaped parks. There is also a miniscule sky terrace for each tower block. Its one of those things you’ll go and see it the first month of moving in, and not so much after that.

The finishing and specifications are entry level, mostly ceramic tiles all round. Service charge is 16sen psf.

As a whole, IJM has done a pretty good job for this project, working well to capture the target market. The site has a good view, but the surrounding areas would prove to be a hard sell. But this hasn’t really been a problem so far, with most of the units in Block B snapped up. As we mentioned earlier, it suits the young working crowd well, with its proximity to the city via MRR2 (you’ll have to endure the daily Pandan Indah jam, though). But ideally you’ll need your own transport though, the nearest LRT is quite far. You wouldn’t want to walk up the hill everyday. In terms of pricing, it isn’t extremely cheap, (but not expensive either) starting from RM150psf for Type A and RM180psf for the larger B1.

Generally, we liked it. Cheras isn’t for everyone, but it would interest the upgraders from the surrounding matured neighbourhoods. It’s leasehold, but this factor doesn’t weigh so much for the target market, not like say, RM500k bungalows. But it is high density, though, with 530 units in total.

IJM Properties is the property development arm of the conglomerate IJM, which has diverse interests. In the last two years, they’ve aggressively embarked on landbank building, and recently launched a few projects, besides their building projects for other developers (although that is by their construction arm).

Despite the long Deepavali and Hari Raya break, plus a period when we were not in the country, October still managed to see 4 reviews. We’ve updated the reviews page, you can view it here.

The 4 latest reviews in October were:

Beverly Tower @ Plaza Medan Putra
Menjalara 18 Residences, Bandar Menjalara
Zamrud Apartment, Old Klang Road
Taman Puchong Tekali Phase 2: Freesia and Candytuft

This project was just launched over the weekend. There are two part to it, 56 units of 3 storey terrace ‘Garden Homes’, and two towers of affordable apartments with 569 units. Both parcels which are located side by side are open for sale now.

First let’s talk about the location. At the moment, the temporary entrance is via Bandar Kinrara, going through the turning off where the old Bandar Kinrara show units are, if you know the area well. This entrance goes through some kampong areas, including lots of those metal recycling centres. A distance inside, you’ll see the cleared land and sales office. The land is a narrow strip, surrounded by the aforementioned kampong, and some industrial lots.

But the permanent access to this project is not ready yet at the moment. It will be a new road that will pass by the existing Tamil school near the Kinrara military camp, and out to the junction of Bandar Kinrara and the old Jalan Puchong (on the way out to Old Klang Road). Unfortunately, the sales people were not able to show the exact alignment of this proposed road, or on whose land it will be traversing, only so much as pointing the rough direction of the exit. This isn’t the only aspect of the development that was NOT clearly shown to visitors like us (at least at the time we were there), but more on that later.

In terms of location, they have chosen to market it more as ‘Bukit Jalil‘ (although the name still maintains the Kinrara identity) although it can be argued that since the access is from Bandar Kinrara, it is more logically to be perceived as in BK. But however you call it, the location seems to be a hard sell. There is a very small commercial area within Bandar Kinrara near here, it is actually one row of shops only. The next nearest commercial area is the one on the main road of Jalan Puchong, which we need to add that the junction is a little chaotic and congested at peak hours to say the least. Looking at the connectivity, you can jump on to the Sg. Besi-Puchong road nearby, or onto LDP and Kesas (via Sunway Kinrara).

If you can believe it, there is no site plan or model to show the whole development. They have the two parts of it separately, but HOW the two are interconnected with is not shown, including where the neighbouring lots are, and as mentioned earlier, where the access road is and where it will lead to. What they have is only the stylized location plan you see in the brochures, which isn’t accurate enough (or detailed, for that matter) to serious shoppers.

From what we can gather, there are a few rows of the landed units, and the apartments are at the end of the road. We are told that the facilities for the stratified apartments are meant to be shared with the landed unit owners, so some kind of easement must be in place there.

Let’s look at the apartments first. The seem to be targeting the entry level market with the pricing RM163,900 onwards. Altogether, there are 569 units available in two ‘L’ shaped tower blocks. There are 4 types of units available, 3 typical units and one terrace unit type. The typical unit type are 1,091sq.ft., 1231sq.ft. and 1240sq.ft. The smallest unit has 3 bedrooms, while the two larger units have an additional utility right next to the entrance which can be converted to a maid’s room or let out to renters. All units have 2 baths, a balcony and a/c ledges. For the smallest unit, there is an open kitchen while the others have it in a separate area. One good thing is the units come with a sizable yard. Type A (1091sq.ft) felt a little too cramped for us, although it is suitable for very small families or bachelors who prefer not to pack it in with too many tenants. We’d choose the type C, which is the largest – all rooms are decently sized. The design here differs slightly in that the living and dining are at the center of the unit with the rooms at both sides.

For those looking for more space, there are limited number of terrace units from 1,478 to 3356sq.ft. These are basically type C units located at the common podium floor, where they have an additional large terrace space, which is actually the roof to the parking structure. Of course you are paying a premium for this space, but we don’t really fancy these types. One, you’ll find your neighbours throwing cigarette butts and small stuff out of their windows onto your precious garden terrace. Secondly, there isn’t much privacy here, as it’s open to public view, even from the linkbridge connecting the two blocks (for some units only).Well, we suppose there will be those who think its great.

In terms of facilities, the developers have put the usual stuff here like swimming and wading pools, shops, playground, sauna, security, gym and such. We found it adequate, considering outside shops are not easily accessible.

One thing we want to highlight – for the apartments, the developers have used press clippings of the proposed LRT extension heavily in their sales material. However, none of the sales people were able to clearly tell us when or where the extension will be completed. Understandably so, since we know clearly well the government hasn’t made any more announcements since the first a few months ago, saying that it will be located near the IOI Mall in Puchong Jaya (which isn’t too near here anyway).

For the apartment units, public transportation would be a problem, but you could walk a distance to the main road or to the nearest LRT feeder bus station in Bandar Kinrara. Most people would draw comparisons to the recently launched Sierra Residency in BK5 to this place, although we feel that Sierra has more advantages when compared to this place.

For the landed units, the developer has opted for 3-storey garden homes. But unlike other so-called park homes or garden homes which usually have small plots and high structure giving a thin-and-tall look, these units have a large plot size – 20’ x 86’ minimum. The concept of limited landed units beside an apartment isn’t new, recently it was seen in the Heron Residency. However, there are far more units here, 56 in all.

At 3065sq.ft., there is plenty of space for every room, and in total there are 5+1 rooms and 4 baths. The master bedroom at the first floor has a large balcony, and the second floor has an even larger balcony terrace. From the front façade, you can see the two balcony stepping inwards, hence the ‘garden home’ name. That is, if you actually bother to plant stuff there.

The living room on the ground floor is huge, but the wet kitchen is rather small. So too are the attached bath for bedrooms 2, 3, 4 and 5. And another thing, bedrooms 2 and 3 share one bath, similarly for bedrooms 4 and 5. Maybe they should have introduced a second master bedroom with its own exclusive attached bathroom, as with a lot of other 3 storey homes in some other developments.

We didn’t really like this garden home concept, we feel the ample build up space could have been better used, but you certainly can’t please all the people all the time. However, in this area, there is very tight competition when it comes to large landed units, you can literally list down so many others in the vicinity – Paragon Heights, Mutiara Bukit Jalil, Bandar Kinrara (numerous phases), Alam Sutera, etc.

To summarize, we were hardly impressed with the place, especially the location. On the upside, the apartments are rather competitively priced, and its freehold. For the landed, we are not entirely fascinated by the idea of the “limited landed units next to apartment” concept, due to the high density, and it’s associated problems, like student renters swarming the place, indiscriminate parking on the roads, etc. We’d say, let’s look around some more.

This is developed by the same people who brought you SuriaMas condo in Sunway. And a few others around the Valley.

Well, okay, this isn’t really a MALAYSIAN property, but I’m sure most of you guys would have heard of the Burj in Dubai.

According to wikipedia and the official website:

Its final height is officially being kept a secret due to competition; however, figures released by a contractor on the project have suggested a height of around 808 metres (2650 feet)[1]. Based on this height, the total number of habitable floors is expected to be around 162. However, on the project’s official website, a interior graphic of an elevator panel shows floor numbers up to 195.

Upon its completion in 2008 the Burj Dubai will likely become the tallest building in the world. It will beat out the current title holder, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, as well as numerous other proposals including the Freedom Tower at New York City’s World Trade Center, the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Fordham Spire. In addition, it will assume the title of the world’s tallest structure, surpassing the tallest freestanding structure (on land), Toronto’s CN Tower, as well as the guyed KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota, the latter setting a minimum height for the tower at almost 630 m.

We found this recent site progress photo of the building under construction.

When completed, the tower would most probably look like this:

Okay, back to Malaysian property tomorrow…