Property Malaysia

Today’s the last day of the year, and while most people can’t wait to party hard tonight, we thought it’ll be a good time to look back to 2008 and what has happened in the last 12 months.

People will remember this year for many reasons… the Olympics, Barack Obama, the Malaysian political tsunami after the general elections, the hijacked vessels, so many events that happened. But in the property scene, two events will be long remembered that will affect the industry in a profound way in the coming months and years.

First was the financial bailout of the sinking companies in the US that precipitated the recession to hit the world, and particularly here in Malaysia. In a few short months, people we knew started losing their jobs, price of everyday materials starting going up, property sales and rentals start slowing down. And next year, particularly after the Chinese New Year, things will begin to unravel further for us.

The second event is, of course, the landslide that happened in Ampang. A lot has been said on the matter, so we won’t say much, but it only serves as a reminder that it has happened before, and will happen again.

People always talk about boom-bust cycles of the economy in terms of 10 year cycles. The last 2 were in 1987 and 1998. Its about time, then, now in 2008-09. Call it cliched or just a law of economics, or maybe just a self fulfilling prophecy

Tomorrow will be Christmas Day, and Monday is Awal Muharram and following that will be New Year’s Day. A lot of city folks are on long leave, so we would like to wish all our readers Happy Holidays, drive safely. Also, don’t overspend, its going to be some lean times ahead

Got this from here, via rocky’s bru.

Blogger Pok Ku has written a heartfelt letter to the new Dato’ Bandar of DBKL, about the plight of the residents of Vista Angkasa, Bukit Kerinchi. The DBKL flats had their telephone cables stolen and have been without phone and internet connection for 4 weeks. A vey interesting read.

Congratulations on being appointed the Mayor of Kuala Lumpur. As a citizen who made the mistake of buying a place administered by DBKL, I am naturally hopeful that we have a mayor who cares about people’s welfare and comfort, especially people living in DBKL’s realm.

I am pretty sure that the people welcoming you in DBKL did not tell you about the urgent problem in Vista Angkasa, Bukit Kerinchi. It is not important, apparently. But, as you might remember from your studies, “important” and “urgent” are two different things.

Read the full letter here.

You KNOW times are changing when a company like Naza start using feng shui predominantly to market their new project.

This recent project by a subsidiary of the Naza TTDI group is located in Taman Bukit Indah, and it boast of being a riverside development surrounded by green forested foothills on 3 sides. The project is actually on the other side of a hill from The Peak@Taman TAR. The foreston the hill slopes are part of the reserve that you can clearly see from some stretches of the MRR2 if you are driving from Ulu Kelang to Melawati.

They are preparing for a January 2009 launch, but are open for registrations now (so please check with them during launch for any detail change). Work on the project site has actually been going on for a few months now, and they are targeting to complete the homes at the end of 2009 or early 2010. This would mean that the purchasers would be handed over their homes after only a year of purchasers, as opposed to 2 full years for normal landed property. This arrangement definitely is a plus point for the developer, demonstrating their financial backing at the same time.

The site is actually in Taman Bukit Indah, but they are marketing the project under the Ampang locality. On the plot of about 35 acres, there are 66 link villas and 68 bungalows. The show units are not completed yet, but from what we can see, there are two types of bungalows available and one type of link villas. The link villas are basically very large semi-D units, and are quite similar in design to the bungalows but with 10′ less of width of the plot. All units are three storeys, and employ a very contemporary facade design with full height windows and pitched RC roofs.

We like the way the units are arranged in the development. All units are near the river, and have good view of the surrounding hills. With 4 units per acre, they have opted for low density, with units that come with larger plots. Not many development offer 45′ x 85′ for a basic semi-D unit. Link villas are sized at 5,336sq.ft while bungalows are marginally larger at 5,354sq.ft. Units come with up to 8 spacious rooms with an ensuite bathrooms a pool on the porch, and an internal courtyard with a pool (link villas), 2 to 3 timber decks facing the garden, and lots of space all around.

It will be interesting to see how the riverside treatment would look like upon completion. The whole concept of The Valley centers on the nature concept, with the greenery and flowing riverine. However, during construction, protection of the element is sometimes inadvertently compromised, so we hope that the finished product would look as it was before it started. But having said that, we can understand the angle of feng shui that the marketing folks have employed.

The indicative price is starting from RM2.4mil for link villas and starting from RM2.6mil for bungalows. The close pricing difference for the two main unit types reflects the similarity in the design, meaning that a link villa can be said to be ‘almost like a bungalow’. It can also mean one of two things - the link villa is priced on the high side, or that the bungalow is priced on the low side (although another common view would be BOTH are priced equally high, haha). But of course a project like The Valley isn’t for everyone. Heck it isn’t even for most Malaysians, to put it plainly. Especially in light of the expected economic conditions next year.

Naza TTDI has many projects, current and completed across the country, you can see the listing on their website.

Bottomline - do we like it? Of course. Would we buy it? Can’t answer, we don’t have more than two million ringgit to spare, but we love to contemporary architectural design.

95% of the world’s supply of opal comes from a town called Coober Pedy in South Australia. The population of the town, 3000 of them, live underground most of the time because the harsh weather conditions can go up to 40 degrees during the day.

Coober Pedy has around 250,000 mine shafts.

These are the homes

They have churches…

And even hotels.

Source

Disaster yesterday afternoon along Jalan Semantan, Damansara Heights. Thankfully no one was injured.

Rescuers unearthing the cars. Note the large boulders.

sniffer dogs doing their job.

Top of slope slip circle.

Evac.

pics from the Star.

Segambut just got an addition to its real estate landscape - the Serai is a very limited number of semi-D (28) and only 2 bungalows.

The temptation for projects in this area is to be marketed as Mont’Kiara even though its not located there, and sometimes its not even nearby. But well, even though this is a pretty upmarket development, they are wise to concentrate on the strengths of their design rather than tag along on the perceived glamour of an address like Mont’Kiara.

The Serai is actually located opposite Anjung Tiara, another upmarket semi-D development that was launched more than 2 years ago. You can read the review for Anjung Tiara here. While Anjung Tiara had a more distinctive architectural design (with the red fin-like roof), the Serai differs in the sense that they have opted for conventional but luxurious layout and look. Plus unlike Anjung Tiara which is located on a hillside (a few ppl have noted this dominant feature of that development), the Serai is on flat ground.

Getting to this place is a bit tricky, the route from Mont’Kiara is heavily trafficked by dump trucks and lorries servicing all those luxury condominiums there under construction. In the past 2 years some upgrading works have been carried out on the roads around this area making it a little more convenient to get in and out, but due to the fact that this is an area predominantly surrounded by kampung, there are limitations to how much road reserve that there can be. There are 3 proposed links that are still yet to be completed, one is to Desa Parkcity, another is a shortcut directly to Jalan Segambut and the third one is to Persiaran Prima Pelangi. Actually talk about these connecting roads have been going on for many years, but the salespeople couldn’t really tell us when these roads can actually be open for public use. Certainly when these new road are open, it’ll really make access to this area much better, but as an alternative at the present, Alternatively, you can use the old roads in Kepong and Menjalara to reach the LDP or out to KL.

The 30 units are arrange in two facing rows on one main street, the 2 bungalows are located at the cul-de-sac (which is more expensive version of a dead-end).

The only thing we can say about the Serai is that it is exclusive, and beautiful. All the 28 semi-D units come with three stories of 5 rooms and 6 baths, and 4,632sq.ft. of space. The top floor is taken up entirely by the masterbedroom and its ensuite bathroom. There is a large deck balcony at the front and a smaller one facing the back. The plot size varies from 3,111sq.ft. to 3,908sq.ft. for the semi-D and for the bungalow its 7,632sq.ft. and 7,912sq.ft. The first two semi-D units nearest to the guardhouse are the ones with the largest plot sizes, they are considered the ‘corner’ units.

What else do we like? The double volume living room, the earthy look and colour scheme, and the clever use of planter box to soften the facade. Full length glass windows especially at the ground floor dominate the view. Unfortunately the ‘intermediate’ units don’t have much garden space compared to what is usually found for semi-Ds. Since the lots are closely spaced, ventilation could be a problem, not view is nothing much to speak of either.

This is the first project for the developer.