Property Malaysia

New year, new resolutions, new projects. To kick off 2008, there is Twins at Damansara Heights, a high end condominium development project that has just been launched.

Damansara Heights has become quite a touchy issue of late when it comes to new project. The area is synonymous with rich and famous, along with the surrounding areas like Bukit Bandaraya and Bukit Damansara. The quiet bungalow lifestyle here is a marked difference from the bustling closely built condo scene of Mont’Kiara. So developing any high rise buildings in Damansara Heights is never is easy task, especially when you consider the fact that most of the available land is either on a hill slope, or sensitive areas that may not get through the objection process.

But Twins is on a good location, and on level ground. It is behind Menara Millennium facing Taman Bukit Damansara, surrounded by major roads and highways. Generally the location and proximity to the city is one of the main factors that make Damansara Heights so desirable, and so this is to Twins’ benefit.

The project is actually a joint venture between four parties – The Lion Group, AIG Investments, Koh Maju and Heeton Venture. The latter two are established developers from across the Causeway while the Lion Group are old hands in the Malaysian development scene. The trend of cash-rich Singaporean firms looking to invest in Malaysia continues, probably a testament to their faith in the continued profitability our property industry.

On to the development. On this 0.87 hectare land, they have inevitably gone for the upmarket segment. Way upmarket, we’d say. There are two towers of 36 storeys each, housing 318 units (considering it is surrounded mainly by landed units). The twin towers are angled slightly off the north-south axis, perhaps to avoid any units from facing the setting sun directly. This makes the towers slightly diagonal to the plot of land it sits on, making the placement of outdoor facilities slightly awkward. The plot of land is quite small to start with, so it does not afford the developers much space of landscaping to work with. But they do provide the standard issue of high end condo facilities like swimming pool, playground and Jacuzzi and more.

The towers are a bit like a teardrop in section, giving a knife edge at one corner. The lower floors have 6 units per floor (up to the 14th floor) and beyond that there are five per floor. There are also 9 penthouses per tower, and each penthouse is unique, either a duplex or triplex (including a private roof garden) ranging from 2,171 to 5,261sq.ft. (penthouse). The standard units come in 6 different designs, and ranging from 766 to 2,078sq.ft.

Because of the building shape, the units are odd shaped, some with a curved border. The smallest units are studio units (766sq.ft.) while the largest typical unit 3+1 and comes with 3 balconies.

In summary here’s what we like – there is a good mixture of small and large units, and at about RM850psf., that means the price range starts from the affordable to expensive (price starts from RM700k). The location is, of course, undeniably enviable, so no complaints there, which also means good connectivity. The glass façade looks impressive, perhaps mirroring the trend in HK these days. The developers have a good track record (restructuring due to 1997 financial restructuring notwithstanding) and have financial backing. On the downside – we are not too fond of the building shape, although we must admit that it is a bold design statement. Consequently the unit layout is not as efficient as it can be, due to the non-orthogonal borders, but this, too, is down to personal preference. With the small plot of land, the surrounding outdoor facilities is lacking.

All in all, we’d say it’s a good start to the year.