Property Malaysia

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.