Property Malaysia

As our capital city continues to expand wider and higher to cater for more skyscraping condominiums, the divide between the haves and have-nots is becoming more and more noticeable.

Perhaps it is something to be expected - our city is an old one, there plenty of old neighbourhoods with aging shophouses and urban villages that once housed the thousands of immigrants from the rural areas looking for employment back in the 60’s and 70’s.

But now, a new breed of towers have appeared around the KLCC, perhaps a sign of a deeping divide in the city. This of course is not an issue peculiar to KL, most other third world country face this reality too.

This photo is from Paraisópolis favela, Morumbi, Sao Paulo in Brazil.

The second photo is another view of the divide, taken from the side of the shanty town.

This two photos below, are in the Venezuela capital, Caracas.

The same location as seen from Google Earth.

This last set is taken from Dharavi, Mumbai in India.

Note the homes built on the small hillock.

The same hillock from Google Earth.

Photos and write-up are from deputy-dog.com.

As usual, the projects page has been updated to include all the latest reviews, please let us know if there are any broken links, thanks. The reviews in the past one month are:

Subang Andaman, Shah Alam
BayRocks, Sunway South Quay
Ruby, Putra Heights (Putra Avenue)
3Residen, Melawati

Happy 50th Merdeka to all Malaysians, from Property Malaysians.

While we acknowledge that not everything is this country is perfect, we are proud and happy to be Malaysians and celebrating half a century of Independence.

(pic from wkipedia)

We wish all Malaysians a great holiday weekend, don’t drink and drive, and don’t forget to fly our nation’s flag proud and high.

Selamat Hari Merdeka!

Here’s something that’s makes you thankful for your own bricks and mortar house.

It’s a collection of homes made from uncanny everyday objects - beer cans, cardboards, tyres, rubber and other stuff you would expect to be used.

Alternative & Crazy Home Construction Materials : Beer Cans, Tires & Cardboard.

Not sure if the cardboard house can survive long in the rain…

Last week, we ran a poll on residential versus commercial property for our readers, we’ve closed it and the results are in. We actually got a little over 100 votes, which is less than the response from our earlier polls. If you are interested in seeing the results of our earlier polls, you can see them listed below at the end of the article.

If you guys remember, the question was this:

QUESTION:
Malaysian condos are usually built on land that is designated as commercial or residential. Initially, commercial condos were more popularly known as serviced apartments, but now that differentiation is not so obvious are many commercial title projects are marketed the same.

In terms of the national land code and HDA, there is a world of difference, but what do you prefer as a buyer?

There were four choices available, and an overwhelming number of you voted for RESIDENTIAL only (65%). That’s almost 2 out of every three votes. 23% voted that they had no preference to either RESIDENTIAL or COMMERCIAL, while 5% prefered only COMMERCIAL.

The remaining 8% said they did not know the difference.

I think in this day and age where prime freehold land is getting more and more scarce, especially at prices viable for development, people are getting warmer to the idea of commercial development, although residential projects still hold the lure above anything else.

Thanks to all who participated in the poll, we look forward to the next one soon!

Poll: Freehold vs. Leasehold
Poll: What Is The Value of Your Next Property?

As part of our effort to provide a wider range of scope and coverage, we have joined Smorty, the premier blog advertising, which brings a touch of international companies reaching out to our readers. Basically, how it works is that they give opportunities for property related companies (especially US and UK) to advertise on blogs such as ours.

Blog advertising like Smorty’s is one of the way we keep the blog going, since we are pretty much doing this voluntarily and on our own free time and resources.

We will still be focusing on what matters the most - in-depth, honest reviews of newly launched properties, and we continue to appreciate the support of our many loyal readers over the years. We are also looking to increase coverage of local property news and happenings, as these have become more significant to our nation’s (and ultimately our personal) economy in recent times. Property, like it or not is increasingly becoming a vital element in our nation’s economy.

We never get tired of marvelling at the cute, ergonomically constructed homes some Europeans like the design and build. Like this one, by Tommie Wilhelmsen called Kolonihagen Summerhouse.

Very cute.

(source: here)

The sleeping area is above the small porch, and the kitchen is really minimalist.

For more pics and story, check it out here.

Some of you may have noticed that Equine Capital has been in the news recently with the official launch of the RM80mil Permai Central Transport Hub in Pusat Bandar Putra Permai, part of their flagship development in Seri Kembangan.

Recently, the group has also announced that they planning about RM500mil to RM800mil projects by March 2008, which is the end of the financial year. This includes projects in KL and Penang.

Their current projects are made up of

• 900 acres in Seri Kembangan consisting of Equine Park, Putra Permai, Permai Park and Pusat Bandar Putra Permai;
• 450 acres Bandar Cassia in Batu Kawan, Penang.

In the pipeline for the Seri Kembangan project are the Meadow bungalows, Equine Business Park, Rise bungalows, The Crest Hillvillas and the first condominium in Equine Park called Blooming Hill @ Equine Park.

For more on the projects around this area, you can check out the following reviews:

Cahaya Permai Apartments
Taman Dato Demang, Puchong
Phase 3, Taman Dato Demang
Sovereign, Permai Park
Desaminium Park (Taman Desaminium)
Bayan Villa, Bukit Ikhlas

Quirky home that we just have to highlight here. It’s a residential building somewhere in Amsterdam.

How cool is that? Too bad we can’t really see how the structure is supported from this distance. Unless it’s a photoshopped pic.

While most people were more fascinated with the the 07.07.07 weekend, yesterday marked the 2nd anniversary of this blog’s inception.

We can’t believe it’s only been two years since we started this blog to talk about property launches on the free blogsome site, it has certainly come a long way over the last 24 months. After all this while, the blog turned out a little different from what we envisioned it to be.

But at the end of the day, the primary objective of the blog remains unchanged, and will stay so for as long as the blog is running.

While tomorrow we may go out for a teh tarik at the mamak to celebrate the occasion, thanks to all our loyal readers for their support and we will be back very soon with more reviews. Business as usual.