Property Malaysia

While Batu Caves will invariably be known for the limestone hills and the famous temple there, it has slowly been making itself known in in the property market. It’s probably inevitable in hindsight, the Klang Valley has been expanding in all directions to cope with the growing demand for real estate. While the limestone hills are still imposing, development is slowly creeping nearer towards it, and around it. While it was previous unthinkable to have a commercial centre right next to the rockface, it has happened and people have pretty much gotten used to it.

For some years the demand have been for commercial areas and cheap housing, now the need to higher priced condomimium is beginning to show, as seen from some of the recent launches in the area. Dolomite has a pretty good location for their new condo - its just next to the MRR2 (it will be easily be recognizable on the highway), near the new KTM Komuter station, and they also have a great view of the limestone rockface behind them. In fact they’ve used them heavily in their marketing material, nicely done instead of the usual stock photographs we usually see.

Park Avenue consists of a shopping mall on the ground floor, a few levels of parking for tenants, a podium level of the common facilities and about 20 levels of units. Due to the soil condition here, and perhaps the proximity to the hills and highway, they do not have the option to have a basement parking, so the parking takes up about 6 levels above ground, giving the condo more imposing height. Actually, looking at the artist’s impression of the condo, we can’t help to think that it could have looked a lot better with some tweaks, it kinda looks odd with the lift motor room fins and the colour scheme. Talking about the colour scheme, its orangey colour just doesn’t go with the tropical green paradise theme… maybe they should have gone contemporary… it maybe overused, but there’s a reason why its popular.

There are basically two types of standard units available here, a a smaller unit at 1,177sq.ft. with 3+1 rooms or the larger 4+1 room version with a more spacious 1,440sq.ft. build up. The layout desgin is quite adequate. There are no balconies, and they use window space generously to maximize light into the living and masterbedroom. This lents to the dominant feature of the facade from the outside.

There are 474 units here, so we are talking about quite a high density of units here, and this is more so when you consider the volume of traffic from the retail outlets on the ground floor. Units are priced starting from RM233,500 which works out to be about RM200 onwards. Pricing structure isn’t expensive considering it is freehold, but not competitive enough to attract investors who are not actively looking in this area.

In terms of facilities they have substantial to offer, and each unit comes with 2 parking bays.