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.

The developer has sent in some recent site progress photos of the project. The original review can be read here.

The first pair of photos show the construction of the actual units up to architectural works in progress.

These are shots of the show unit which we had the opportunity to view last year.

Those of you who regular visit launches in Bandar Puteri would be familiar with a row of bungalows shown at the scale model (at their sales office). This row of exclusive units are situated on the elevated part of Bandar Puteri where the other phases like Grande View, Vista, Summit and The Peak are located.

Now they have finally launched this phase of bungalows, are there seem the be very much fewer units than initially envisioned, probably as a move to make it more exclusive (and also more expensive). There are only 20 units along Jalan Puteri 12/2, they all face outward towards the general direction of the main Bandar Puteri area.

We’ve reviewed many of the recent launches of Bandar Puteri, including a development review of the area. You are encouraged to read the earlier reviews to find out our take on the connectivity, accessibility and quality of this massive development by the IOI group:

Development Review: Bandar Puteri by IOI Properties

Elyssa Villa
Nadia
Eugenia
Lilac (22’ x 75’ linkhouses)
Aseana Puteri (condominiums)
Bayu Puteri (apartments)
Grande View (22’ x 70’ hilltop linkhouses)

While this elevated area of Bandar Puteri maintains it’s designation as the more higher priced phases of the development, some of the units here are basically standard size linkhomes, but with the added premium of the panoramic view attached to it. There is even an affordable apartment (Bayu Puteri) near here. Perhaps it is considered to be pricey for this premium, but the demand from the buyers is still strong.

The semi-D phase (Eugenia) and bungalow phase (Elyssa Villas) are located at another enclave, near the Aseana Puteri condo.

For RM2.189million upwards, what do you get? For a start, you get a huge plot of land. The standard plot gets you 74’ x 125’. Comparatively, most other bungalow phases in other developers in the same price bracket are much smaller. There are two corner units with much bigger land available, but the price is higher accordingly.

There are two one typical layout available, and you can choose one of either mirror image layout. One of them is has a longer driveway, and this adds to build up slightly, giving you a choice of 5,450 or 5,863sq.ft. The layout is spacious, given the large layout spread over two floors. We like that they’ve maintained it as a double-storey unit, we think it works better than the more popular two-and-a-half storey variety. There are 6 bedrooms and 6 baths, and large spaces all round for the living, dining and kitchen. Even the driveway is enough for 4-6 cars, depending on the unit you buy.

As with luxury units like these, it all boils down to personal preference. If you can afford it, and like the area and layout, it’s probably good for you. But overall, this looks like a nice addition to IOI Properties’ portfolio for Bandar Puteri.

The units come with guarded features (together with the other phases nearby) and they are throwing in together a home alarm package with the unit.

We’re now in the last month of 2007, everyone’s busy with their holidays and shopping. Last month, November, we did four reviews and we’ve updated the reviews page.

The four new launches reviewed in November were:

Austral Yarra Link, Puchong
Villa Park, Taman Bukit Serdang
Parkville, Bandar Bukit Puchong
Idaman Villas, Damansara

Some big plans are shaping up for PJ Development Holdings Bhd in the near future. Firstly, they have reported a 122% increase in first quarter net profit of RM14.27 million, and are gearing up to launch three new property projects with total gross development value (GDV) of over RM430 million.

According to a report:

Managing director Wong Ah Chiew said yesterday the projects were the RM250 million Swiss Garden Residences, RM150 million Laman Callista project and the Siarah Oakleaf valued at RM30 million.

“The high-end Swiss Garden Residences in Kuala Lumpur is expected to be launched in January next year and scheduled to be completed by 2010. Pre-tax profit margin is expected at 25%,” he said after its AGM where shareholders approved a resolution to nominate BDO Binder as auditors to replace the retiring auditors, KPMG.

Wong said the twin tower 36-storey development comprised 413 designer service suites which would be built next to the Swiss Garden Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

The luxury Siarah Oakleaf, with a GDV of RM30 million, would be built in Bukit Antarabangsa on a 2.68 acre site with the soft launch scheduled in December.

The Laman Callista project, a gated community of 192 semi-detached homes, will be built on 35 acres of land in Taman Universiti, Pulai, Johor. Its launch is scheduled in the fourth quarter of its financial year 2008.

PJD have many existing development projects across Klang Valley and the country, and some of the ones reviewed by us in Property Malaysia are:

Impian Meridian, USJ1
Laman Oakleaf
Endah Puri
Kensington Park
Hartamas Regency 2

We are all pretty familiar with all those Australian properties being heavily advertised locally, especially those touting that places like Melbourne CBD is the ‘next hot property market’.

Now here’s something a little different – it’s a local project, with an Australian theme. Why Australian? No idea. Maybe it’s just a name.

The project is located behind Tesco in Puchong, next to Glomac’s Lakeside Residences (review here). To get to this place, there are two ways to enter the site, and the main entrance will be from YTL’s Lake Edge, past some factory lots and you will see this development on your left just before Lakeside Residences.

The other way to come in here would be from Puchong Intan, but that way would be less preferable.

This site is actually just across the river from USJ, and you can clearly see USJ1 Avenue across the waterway on the way in. A huge part of the marketing for this project hinges on the future connecting link from Puchong to USJ. However, as most residents on both sides of the river will tell you, this issue has been much talked about in the past ten years or so, but there seems to be no concrete plans as to when the bridge will actually start to be developed.

But even without the bridge, this area is still quite accessible to the main road, which is the LDP.

The development (which is actually called Bandar Metro Puchong) sits on an ex-mining land, similar to the neighbouring Lakeside Residences. The developer has opted for a raft foundation to alleviate the long term settlement due the effects of mining land, but the extent of the raft foundation is probably limited only to the houses, which may still cause differential settlement in the long term.

The development is quite sizable, about 200 acres in size and the master plan shows a commercial area and some amenities planned to make it an integrated mixed development. According to the salespeople, the developer is planning to set up their own headquarters here in the near future. But besides that, on the residential portion of the development, this is only the first of many phases that will be launched.

For this first phase, there are 213 homes open for sale. There is only one type of unit available for this pilot phase, and the three variations are the intermediate, corner and end lot types. It is a standard 2 and a half storey linkhouse set on a standard 22’ x 75’ plot.

The standard intermediate lot is about 2846sq.ft., and there are 4 rooms. There is a store room on the ground floor, but they’ve shown it to be a bedroom in the brochure. Maybe they should have just named it as a room to avoid any confusion. Every unit comes with a courtyard in the living room area, which opens up all the way to the sky. This courtyard is actually quite large. The other key feature of the house is that the living room and dining is at the back of the house, and the front of the ground floor is occupied by the aforementioned store/bedroom and a powder room.

The kitchen opens out to the courtyard, so ventilation may be a big problem here as air circulation may not be sufficient. This kind of layout was last seen in Ametis of Bukit Puchong.

The project is planned to be gated and guarded.

We are not fans of this kind of layout, but if you are interested, you should check it out. Plus factoring in the previous use of the land, plus the fact that it is leasehold may prompt comparison with other competing projects. It is priced as competitively as we had expected it to be, the prices start from RM482k upwards.

Maintenance fee is about RM150 monthly, please check with the sales people for the latest info.

This is the developers’ first major project in the Klang Valley. Previously they were mainly involved as a turnkey contractor.

The developer Villamas has now launched the second project in this area of Taman Bukit Serdang, following the earlier launch of Villa Pavilion which was quite well received. This new condo is located at a nearby site, which is actually behind Technology Park Malaysia.

The main concern for people planning to buy into this area is the proposed link road from Taman Bukit Serdang to the free-to-use Jalan Sg. Besi – Puchong. At the time when they launched Villa Pavilion, many people were quite unsure as to whether the road would actually be built by the authorities.

But for this launch of Villa Park, they are happy to point to you that the all-important link road is now heavily under construction, and you can see it from both ends of the connection. So how vital is this connecting road? It’ll greatly improve the accessibility of the area, that is a given fact. To appreciate this, you need to survey the area with the current access roads. There are two options to come to this place, either by the heavily congested main road of Seri Kembangan town, or from a earlier turning off the aforementioned Jalan Sg. Besi Puchong, near the Selangor Turf Club. Both access are heavily used at most times of the day, and both will make you go through some narrow roads and industrial areas.

The new link, although left turn only onto the main road, will make a difference, and it is understandable that all the developers around here are watching it anxiously.

Taman Bukit Serdang is quite different from it’s surroundings of matured, small terrace homes and low-cost apartments. It’s on the small hill, and mainly made up of newer higher priced linkhomes and condos, interspersed by green areas. Sooner of later, these lungs will mostly likely be developed too, but maybe it’ll still be in a few years time.

The TPM greenery next door makes sure that this condo will have a good view for the near future, and we found the location and surrounding to be quite pleasing.

At the end of the road, bordering the TPM is Villa Park, a development with two tower blocks. At the moment, they are opening up only the first tower block of about 200 units. We won’t go into details about the unit layout, but they offer 6 types of design ranging from 956 to 1,414sq.ft, with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. All units come with a balcony, the larger units have a utility room.

The facilities are quite good, they have sports facilities, besides the usual swimming pools, playgrounds, parks and security features.

Judging from the unit size and pricing, they are targeting the entry level buyers getting their first home here. Taking advantage of the proximity to TPM and the nearby colleges, this seems a good strategic move. Speaking of the price, it goes from a cheap RM153k onwards, which works out to be from about RM160psf onwards. Good price, very accessible to buyers and investors.

Did we like it? Sure, as we mentioned, the location is advantageous and well connected with all the highway and LRT. Pricing is attractive, plus it’s freehold. On the downside, the unit sizes don’t have a wide range. Only one parking spot is provided with purchase price, additional parking bays can be purchased subject to availability.

Townhouses are quite a strange housing phenomenon in Malaysia. The idea of a townhouse was first conceived as a two-unit strata home in densely populated areas in a town center, where land is scarce and expensive, and not large enough to build apartments. So in these conditions the many forms of townhouses took off, starting from the concept of a low-rise walk-up apartment.

Around here, the most common form of townhouses are two-unit variety, with each unit taking up one and a half floors, with both units having their own driveway. We understand that this concept has its benefits when used in the surrounding that it was intended for – high-density urban areas.

But more often that not, here townhouses are appreciated more for their novel concept more than anything else, and they are usually build as a unit type in a large mixed development. This is usually the case when the developer wants to offer as many types of unit types in his own project – bungalows, semi-Ds, linkhomes, apartments, condos, etc. Sort of covering all the bases to reach the maximum market penetration. So townhouses are also offered as one of them. This obvious in the recent Oasis in Bandar Kinrara and Challis in Sunway Damansara.

Now Bandar Bukit Puchong is also offering a new townhouse phase called Parkville.

Bandar Bukit Puchong is a large freehold development in Puchong and Sepang, and in the past two to three years they have been slowly launching parts of their massive landbank. They have recently undergone through a rebranding exercise, and have dropped the ‘Bandar’ from their name, combined both BBP and BBP2 (the former is in MPSJ land, the latter in Sepang) two one name, and changed their logo to a more contemporary styling. It’s quite timely, since their image was starting to look very dated.

Parkville is the latest phase to be launched will still many more to go. Some of the earlier launches reviewed by us before are:

Nilam Puri
Nilam Terraces
Ametis Terraces
Baiduri Courts

We’ve touched on the quality, location, connectivity and development facilities of BBP in the earlier posts, so we won’t repeat them here, and you are advised to read the above reviews for a recap.

Parkville has the townhouses in a small 24′ x 60′ plot, with both units, higher and lower, having a driveway that can fit one car only. Owners are given space for a second parking spot, but slightly away from your unit. The problem affects most townhouses - it is nigh impossible to park in front of your unit without blocking someone else’s driveway.

The lower unit is at a small 1,259sq.ft while the upper unit fares slightly larger at 1,528sq.ft. in exchange for the climb up everyday. For the lower unit, most of the space, including the master bedroom (and a very small attached bath) is located on the ground, with the first floor housing ony two other rooms and a shared common bath. Both these rooms face the front of the unit, and the third bedroom is very small. But the lower unit has a 5′ backyard, which may allow for some renovation for extra space.

The upper unit takes up two thirds of the first floor, where it houses the living, dining and kitchen. the 2nd floor is where you can find the three rooms. Here the rooms are definitely much more spacious than the lower unit, and the design is altogether more sensible for families.

We’re not fans of townhouses, but if we were to make a choice, it has to be the upper unit. But choice of unit has to be very careful, too, as you need to get a unit that maximizes the ventilation to your unit and avoid the afternoon heat.

The good point is that the units are not as as pricey as the other two townhouse projects mentioned earlier in the review. But at RM200k to RM240k, you need to seriously question yourself whether you want this kind of unit or a apartment outright, which you can easily get for this price. But at the end of the day, it really depends on whether you really prefer townhouses or not. The other points going for this project applies for the whole development, i.e. freehold and ex-plantation land.

They are planning extensive landscaping and some park features to enhance this 16-acre sub-development which is something different from some of the earlier launches.

If you are getting surprised at the rising prices for property in the Klang Valley, get ready to be shocked even more.

Previously, when paying RM10million for a bungalow in the exclusive areas of KL was pretty steep, now SP Setia are planning to up the ante by launching a limited series of “super high-end” bungalows priced at RM30 million each next year.

Yep, that’s THIRTY MILLION RINGGIT.’

According to them, they plan to sell 15 units of such bungalows at Kenny Hills in Kuala Lumpur, over a period of two years beginning 2008, pending the authorities’ approval on the building plan.

Read it here.

Idaman Villas is part of a larger development being executed by TA Properties, on a large tract of land that is between Mah Sing’s Damansara Legenda and Tropicana Golf and Country Resort. People usually refer to that area as Tropicana, mainly because Dijaya were pretty much the first the first to enter that area, building the sprawling golf resort and bungalow lots that was once the prestigious address in Petaling Jaya.

But as the years went by, more and more developers started to get in onto the scene, first with the 3 office towers across the road, then Mah Sing (occupying the land next to the highway where the old seafood restaurant is located), and also with Dijaya themselves actively building phase after phase of landed units and condos around the area.

Now Tropicana is synonymous with the closely built homes and crawl leading out of the area. As most PJ folks would know, there are only two ways to get out of here, and both are outflows inadequate to deal with the huge number of cars everyday. With Dijaya’s Casa Tropicana completed, one can only imagine the number of vehicles that will add to this already delicate situation.

There has been talk of a direct link out from Tropicana to the old Subang airport road, but until today, there has been no new development as to when this will become a reality.

TA Properties actually has a large tract of land here, and most of it is set aside for Damansara Idaman. Currently, only the first phase of that project has been launched, and from what we hear, they are gearing up for a new launch sometime next year. A small parcel of land totaling 7 acres has been used for Idaman Villas, which are semi-D and bungalows. At the moment they are only launching the semi-D units. The third parcel of land is earmarked for a small commercial area to service the residents here.

Idaman Villas are 54 numbers of semi-D units closely built in a small site.

There are 4 unit types, all two storey semi-D units. The plot size is slightly larger than the standard, here you have a choice of the longer 40’ x 90’ or the wider 45’ x 80’. We think it doesn’t make much of a different, the deciding factor would be the internal layout. The build up of the units range from 3,692 to 3,850sq.ft. which is a good range for a two storey unit. We are quite surprised at their choice not to go for two and a half storey, given the popularity of them these days, but perhaps they have their reasons. Besides, extra floor build-up means bigger price tag, so we think it works to their favor.

The units mostly come with at least 4+1 rooms, but as we mentioned earlier, they have very little yard space. They make up for it by having an outdoor terrace, and some units have a second courtyard that is quite small. We don’t prefer the courtyard option, since there is little use for it given that the air circulation is very poor there.

Each unit type has their own distinctive feature, and the one we were most impressed with was definitely type A, with a double volume dining area with a pitched roof covered with timber panels for a ceiling. Very elegant, we like. The rest of the units are no less impressive, but it really boils down to individual tastes.

The units don’t have much yard space, since there is only about 5’ space from your building line to your side fence, and at the front, there’s where you park your cars. To offset this lack of space for children to run free, they have set aside a rather small playground area. In addition to that, there is also a small clubhouse, which, at the moment, is already completed and used as a sales office. It can’t really serve as much, seeing that there no facilities there except for a little swimming pool.

The maintenance fee as expected to be RM400 per month, please check with the sales people for the latest info. The development is gated and guarded.

Units cost from RM1.6mil above, which we feel is quite an expensive price for a semi-D unit even if you take into account that it is freehold. For slightly more you can find bungalows in nearby areas, but the location puts a strong argument to justify it. If you want a home in this area, and don’t travel at peak hours, then it’s worth a look.

Other than this project and Damansara Idaman, the developer is also developing Idaman Residence along Jalan P. Ramlee (read the review here).