Property Malaysia

Eid mubarak and Selamat Hari Raya to all our Muslim readers here in Malaysia and across the globe.

As for us, we have some home repair projects to undertake in the next few days, maybe we can fit in one or two Hari Raya open houses.

Anyways, this raya we’ve been listening to this old song Cahaya Aidilfitri by Black Dog Bone a lot, the classics are always the best!

Enjoy!

Mayland have been operating under the radar for the last couple of years, after the many years in the limelight in the earlier part of the decade. But they hadn’t been idle either, they had been strongly promoting their more upmarket projects like Plaza Damas, Hartamas Shopping Centre and Waldorf & Windsor Tower Service Apartment. And now they are launching the third phase of their Sri Putramas condominium, branded as Royal Regent, located along Jalan Ipoh.

Yeah, you’ve seen the ad in the papers recently, picture of a lady in an evening gown looking at you, but scant details on the project.

To be fair, ask any property watcher or buyer that have been around long enough, they’ll have a lot to say about Mayland. Most of their projects over the years have retained a notoriety about their quality, and buyers have always made their feelings known, especially in cyberspace (a quick check on google and you can see this). But here’s the conundrum - as much as they are known for their problems of quality and support staff, their homes are undoubtedly cheap, or at least cheaper than the competition, there is still a substantial demand for them, apparently quite lucrative even, enough. Sure some of these buyers complain about the cracks and poor response from the management, but by and large they know what are they getting into when they bought it, and if they didn’t, that’s a whole different story.

But from the looks of Royal Regent, they are targeting a higher bracket of purchasers with this look, even branding it as Mont’Kiara and Hartamas. But it is really Jalan Kuching, and it’s only MK but some stretch of imagination. (Ironically, the earlier phases were just called Jalan Kuching). But of course, the location is good anyhow you see it. It’s not as fabulous as, say Mont’Kiara, but good nonetheless. It’s not really in the centre, but just a few minutes away if want to go that direction. Besides that, there are plenty of well-connected roads to bring you around the Klang Valley.

The site for the condo is a 2.52-acre piece of freehold land. The condo consists of 2 similiar towers, about 30 storeys of units. There are in total 471 units, so it is a pretty high dense development. There are 5 types of units, ranging from 1580 to 2185sq.ft. In addition to that there are also five types of duplex units available from 3,120 to 4,100sq.ft. The duplex units are basically two floors of similar single floor units.

Parking is above ground, and common facilities is located on the podium floor above ground. Unlike their earlier condominiums, they have opted for a different look for Royal Regent, going for the modern look with white and an earthy grey. This isn’t groundbreaking, almost every other modern condo sports this trend, but it is a clean cut and neat, and we like it.

Pricing is on the average about RM350, which is slightly below the average in the Mont’Kiara area. But if you compare with condos around Jalan Kuching, then it should be around that pricing. But with the large units, the price of the units start at a whopping RM560k upwards, and the most expensive unit is around RM2.2mil. So even though the price per square foot isn’t expensive, the final unit price is.

So when we it comes to the bottomline, the attraction to the condo depend heavily on your perception of the developer. For us, Jalan Kuching is slowly being transformed, plot by plot, but perhaps the results may take another 5 to 6 years to be seen.

What do you think this building is? A warehouse? Some kind of budget hotel?

Nope, its actually a taxidermy shop called Deyrolle in Paris. It was opened in 1831 by entomologist Emile Deyrolle, the shop has become a favorite haunt of the rich and famous, and budding scientists (source).

I doubt a building like this would get past our local council…

Link

With all the concern lately about global warming and rising sea levels, maybe the owners of the beautiful island homes may have start renovating to raise the floor levels…

Nonetheless, they are very beautiful homes, not to mention the awesome view.

For more pics, check out here.

The biggest talking point in this part of town isn’t the financial fallout in the US or the local council issues, its the mega construction going on at the site of Setia Walk in Pusat Bandar Puchong. You can really miss it, its just next to the LDP between Pusat Bandar Puchong and the latest phase of shoplots in Bandar Puteri. At the moment the piling works going in full swing.

This review is on the residential condo of Setia Walk only.

But what is Setia Walk actually? It’s one of the last parcel of land in SP Setia’s Pusat Bandar Puchong, and the most lucrative by any standards. In their own words, Setia Walk is anintegrated residential and commercial development which comprises offices, retail blocks, an entertainment complex, serviced and residential apartments. The commercial area will combine conventional shop offices and a shopping mall (most of this is taken from their recent press release, since they say it best).

Phase One will consist of 85 blocks offering 170 retail and 336 office units. Prices of shop offices range between RM2.5 million and RM8.9 million per block. Retail lots will be located on the ground and first floors, and offices will occupy the higher floors. Phase Two will feature a business hotel, office tower and entertainment complex which will house cineplexes, bowling alleys and karaoke lounges; while apartments will be built in Phase Three.

The residential component will include three 27-storey blocks offering a total of 759 units. Prices start from RM210,000. There will also be 46 small office home office (Soho) units.

Taking a glance at their sales chart show that the shoplots in Phase One have been doing brisk business at the pre-launch, with most if not all of them having been snapped up. And for the time being, they have opened up one tower (out of the three planned to be built) of the residential condo for booking, the one located nearest to Bandar Puteri.

Setia Walk is right next to the LDP, located at near the elevated U turn. There will be two main entrances to the development, one off the slip road from the highway, another one is near the entrance to Taman Wawasan, which you will need to make a U turn at the junction. At the moment, the traffic can be very heavy coming out of Pusat Bandar Puchong due to the high volume of cars at peak hours, this will inevitably be compounded when Setia Walk is completed. The developers plan to add traffic lights to the the exit junction, this maybe a little trickier than it would seem if you are familiar with the road network there. But lets see how it pans out.

On one side is the existing shoplots of Pusat Bandar Puchong, behind the Setia Walk is the existing apartments and landed homes, and or the other side is the newest (and last phase) of Bandar Puteri Puchong developed by IOI Properties. There can be no through road linking the two commercial centres, since they have abutted the entertainment complex right where the road meets. Besides, the whole concept of Setia Walk does not utilizes roads, cars go straight into underground parking.

The condo blocks form a line right at the rear of the development, at the higher ground overlooking the commercial area. For the moment the they are opening one of the three blocks for booking, and it is the block nearest to Bandar Puteri.

There are 15 units per floor, and start from the 8th floor up to the 23rd floor. The residential block consists of two asymmetrical wings, 8 units per floor on the left wing and 7 on the right wing. The space for the 8th unit on the right wing is taken up by the common lifts. The three lifts service all the units on the floor.

So then, the units either face LDP, or away from the LDP, which is facing the Bukit Hitam forest reserve and the rest of Taman Wawasan / Pusat Bandar Puchong. While the front units facing LDP may not be as appealing, they have a good view of the boulevard and commercial area below. But since the apartments are the furthest away from the highway, they will not be affected so much by the noise and pollution from the traffic as you would think.

One block has 253 units, which is pretty low dense. It is a wise move by the designers to keep the number of residential units low (or maybe they were limited by the plot ratio), which will indirectly mean a strong demand for the condo units, while keeping the price of residential units in their Taman Wawasan healthy. There are already many existing apartments in this area, about 8 years old but priced lower, and with this Setia Walk, the demand for those units will surely be boosted.

The facade of the condo is quite unspectacular - nothing like the more upmarket condos that are have appeared around the Klang Valley recently. The reasons for this could be guessed, they are obviously keeping the cost of the condo down (in view of the volatile price of construction materials) and they definitely want to maintain the price of the units attractive to investors. Secondly, the attraction of the condo lies mainly in the boulevard and its landscaped water features, so perhaps it would be better to keep the expenditure where it mattered most.

But coming back to the condo - sizes available are 845, 1,007, 1,096 and 1,396sq.ft. The smallest units are almost a studio apartment design with 1+1 rooms, and the largest unit has 3 rooms. The largest unit (Type A) at 1,396sq.ft. are obviously targeted at small families who need the space, while most of the other units are targeted at the lucrative young working adult group, the mobile generation that will benefit most from the chic lifestyle that the whole Setia Walk encompasses. It is, after all, about hitting the right niche market.

Each unit is provided with one to three parking bays.

Talking about hitting the market, the prices are from RM273k to RM400k, but these prices are subject to confirmation when the official launch takes place. Judging from that pricing we’re looking at about RM320psf. Considering the good location in what can be said to be heart of Puchong, and with the freehold status of the land (although this is an apartment) and the track record of the developer, they may feel the price is justified. Whether you perceive this to be on the high side or low side depends very much on how sold you are on the whole lifestyle boulevard concept of Setia Walk. At the heart of it all, the condo is unspectacular because they aren’t really marketing and selling just the condo, they are basically marketing the high concept of the development. If you like the concept of the whole development, you will want to invest in the condo, or stay there yourself. That, we feel is the bottom line. We like that they have kept the number of units low, although they may still change the number of units for the other two blocks that have yet to be launched.

It was a pretty slow two months for us at the blog, we were mostly bogged down by work matters that had to be dealt with. As a recap, the projects reviewed in that period are listed below. As usual, the reviews page has been updated.

196.Acacia @ the Park Residences, Bangsar South
197.Serenity Heights, Melawati
198.ResTrees, USJ17 Subang Jaya: Phase 3 (Type B)
199.Sutera Damansara, Sri Damansara (Phase 1)
200.Dolomite Park Avenue, Batu Caves

Some of you may have noticed that recently we’ve added a running number to the project listing, and in August we’ve reached the milestone of 200 reviews in just over 3 years. Wow, has it been that many?

After some recent launches focusing more on double storey link homes, Bandar Puteri’s latest launch is a bigger unit with 2 and a half storey called Juniper. This phase has limited number of units on offer, only 33, and at last check there weren’t many units left.

We have reviewed quite a number of the recent launches in this area and for our take on the development as a whole, please read the earlier development review (gotta admit, its probably time we updated it):

Development Review: Bandar Puteri by IOI Properties

Some of the other current launches reviewed by us here in Property Malaysia are as follows:
Elyssa Villa
Nadia
Eugenia
Lilac (22’ x 75’ linkhouses)
Aseana Puteri (condominiums)
Bayu Puteri (apartments)
Grande View (22’ x 70’ hilltop linkhouses)
Olivia
Primrose

The precinct for Juniper employ a somewhat garden concept, maybe just a little more greenery as compared to the other phases launched earlier. Units are also constructed on a slope (probably designed so to make the most of the terrain) and this makes the lower ground floor to be on half a floor. All the units have this layout done similiarly, so in general fron the driveway of the house you can only see it as two storeys.

For a 22′ x 75′ plot, the footprint of the building is slightly smaller than the average linkhome, but with the additional half storey they can maintain the build up at 2,380sq.ft. The lower half level consists of a large family room and a balcony. A balcony at ground level? That is only because the finish floor level is slightly elevated off the ground level. One of the key selling points of this unit is that they provide 3 family lounges, one for each floor.

Actually on the account of ground and first floor only, it resembles pretty much a regular double storey home in terms of internal layout. There are 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. The yard and kitchen being on a higher floor limits the renovation options for those looking for a larger area, so that may be a concern for some.

We didn’t really like the concept of the two and a half storey home done this way, it made the home look less homely, like a low rise apartment from the back to be specific. And with the pricing structure that has become the norm in Bandar Puteri, you’d be paying a premium for the extra square footage, and we would think it would be more worthwhile if the space was configured more in a more advantageous way. But what we like was the long driveway and the exclusive feature of this precinct. Price starts from half a million onwards.

A friend of ours joked that the name of this new condo project is a pop culture reference to Area 51 in the Nevada desert notorious for the purported alien sighting.

But we’re guessing it is refering to the Section number of Petaling Jaya where it is situated.

But in all frankness, we would never have guessed that there would be substantial vacant (or available) land in this part of PJ for a medium scale development like this one. Well if you take a moment to study how the type of land that they have pieced together to form Park 51 (or ask the salespeople to tell you). This area is more known for its factory lots like Cycle and Carriage and Guiness Anchor Berhad and existing village interspersed with equally old landed homes from PJ’s earliest days.

What the developer has done is acquire all the available land (some of them occupied by squatters) and relocated them to low-cost apartments built specially for this purpose. The low cost apartments, Impian Baiduri, are located in the same area, and have been recently completed and occupied.

Some of our associates have noted their concern regarding the connectivity of this area. While it is surrounded by 3 major highways - the Federal Highway, the LDP and the NPE, getting out of this area onto any of the three routes isn’t as straightforward as it seems. This is partly due to the current restrictions of the inner roads surrounding the project site, which are desperately in need of widening but the lack of road reserve cannot allow this. The other reason is that the peak hour traffic on LDP and Federal Highway is crippling to say the least, especially at this all important interchange. But of course those who have stayed here long enough would partly be used to it and would not view it that seriously.

With the land matters settled, the developers have huge plans to make this a comprehensively designed “a City within a City”, despite the current image of the area. Considering all the parcels together, there are 28.7 acres made up of 6 parcels namely made up of 2 parcels for condominiums - Residency (5.6 acres) and MyHome (2.5 acres), and commercial parcels named Boulevard (2.8 acres), Commerce Square (2.8 acres) and Paragon Towers (15 acres). This review will only for Block D of Residency, the only open for sale at the moment.

Residency is a narrow strip of land which will be fully developed as the footprint of the building. The clubhouse with the facilities will be located at the centre of the strip, with three towers of condos (presumably named A, B and C) at the northern end while there is one block of twin towers at the other end, which is named Block D. Block D is the tower which is being launched at the moment. We have been told by the sales people that the other 3 blocks may be sold en bloc or to foreign purchasers.

The entire strip of land forms a monolith of structure, held together by about 5 storeys of parking structure to accomodate the many number of units planned for the entire Residency. The common facilities are in the clubhouse, and also at the podium level, at the top of the parking structure between the towers. For Block D, there are 16 levels of units, and the two wings are symmetrical. A the maximum there are 8 units per floor per wing, giving a total of 256 units for Block D alone. There are 4 units of duplex penthouses at the very top of each wing, that means 8 in total. The penthouse units have a total of 1,867sq.ft. of space in two floors, plus 1,035sq.ft. of roof terrace (which actually is the roof of the neighbouring unit). The roof terrace is an interesting feature, but it is very expensive.

The other single floor units come in many different types, we have noted at least 5 types. There are two type of small units (F1 and F2), limited to only at level 1 and 2, at 662 and 675sq.ft. At the lowest level 1, these units come with generous planter box space, good only if you appreciate maintaining the greenery (and falling small pieces of debris from the higher floors). On most of the other floors, the units are either Type C (1,143sq.ft.), C1 (994sq.ft.) and F (921sq.ft.). The units are typefied by being either corner units or intermediate units, the number of these per floor vary according to the layout for that particular floor.

The smaller units are basically studio units, but with a utility that can be used as a very small bedroom, but would most likely be a store room. The masterbedroom for these units are large, larger than even the living room. But with less than 700sq.ft. to work with, plus a balcony, it is obviously suited for the single working adult without much stuff to store.

The larger units come with either 2, 2+1 or 3+1 rooms, all with balcony. The baths are rather small though. Purchasers are given free membership to clubhouse facilities.

In a nutshell, the location, while good, can be a double edged sword depending on how you perceive it. The narrow strip of land for Residency makes the design of the condominium quite problematic. Pricing from RM300psf upwards isn’t cheap for this context.

With the concern lately about hillside development and the perils that come with it, this is a rather interesting concept that makes full use of the sloping terrain to build a house. It even shows the building plan and section, if you are interested…

Link

With all the problems of hillside projects in Malaysia recently, here are some stunning photos of clifftop communities that have been around for many decades, done the old fashion way.

For more photos and the full article, check it out here.