Malaysia's Property Market Sheltered From US Recession

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Nautilus Bay by IJM fully completed before launching

Latest photo of spring condo in Penang

New project by Ideal Homes coming up in Penang

The One Cybercity by Ideal Homes

IJM will soft launch Nautilus Bay this month on the 31-01-2008

Nautilus Bay is located along the proposed Jelutong promenade that gives a panoramic view of the Penang Bridge. This exclusive development comprises of 78 units 3 storey courtyard homeswith many exciting and practical features. Besides the main entrance car porch, a specially designed garage from the back of house caters for additional 2 covered car parks. The internal courtyard is another enhanced feature to improve the ventilation and bring in natural sun light to the house. The courtyard can also be designed as part of the landscaping area. An attic is also provided to improve the exclusivity and privacy of the property. The glorious view, elegance architecture, accessibility and numerous exciting amenities located conveniently close by have made Nautilus Bay an exclusive address that will be an envy of others.

Link to developer web site

Subang SoHo @ SS 19 Subang Jaya by Titijaya Group

Visit developer web site

Things to note when buying condo

1. Water tank & intermediate pump room

With the price of land remain high and keep on increasing and showing no sign of slowing down especially in most of the major town and cities like Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur, many property developers with land bank in good location have embarked on building high rise luxurious condominium which are often dubbed as “semi-detached” or “bungalow” in the sky, some high end units even have private lift lobby. The selling price of these luxurious condo range from RM400-00 per square feet in Penang to RM2000-00 per square feet or more in Kuala Lumpur depending on design, specifications and location.

Some of the condo block that features a single block design have gone higher because of smaller foot print to limit the number of units per floor, many of them have design approaching 40 storey of height or even higher.

All the high rise condo blocks are equipped with a water storage tank at the very top of the building and the relevant approving authorities always require storage of one day water demand for the entire block so that there will still be water supply for the condo block in the event of interruption of water supply from the authoriries. The roof top water tank supply the water to all units through a downpipe by mean of gravity flow. The water are taken to the roof top tank by means of a pump that pump water from a water tank situated at the ground floor pump room (known as suction tank) through a riser water pipe, pumping is automatically started when water level in the roof top water tank fall to a designated level.

When the building is too high, the authorities will require a two stage pumping system whereby water from the ground floor is pumped from the ground floor water tank to a intermediate water tank and pump room at the middle height of the building before water is eventually pump again to the roof top. Say if a building is 38 storey high, you may find a water tank and pump room at 19th floor or a bit higher or lower depending on the design of the engineering consultants.

When purchasing a condo unit, purchasers are often presented with a sale chart which shows the selling price of units at different levels, sometime one or two units at mid level may be used as the intermediate water tank and pump room and very often the unit are indicated in the sale chart as the water tank room or some developer may choose to just leave it blank without assigning a name for the rooms.

If there are six units at the floor where the intermediate water tank and pump room is situated, usually two units will be used for the water tank and pump room with the remaining four units available for sale.

When buying condo units, it is wise to avoid buying units at the same floor where the intermediate pump room is situated as well as units at floor immediately above or below the intermediate pump room as you can expect some noise when the pump is running. As the pumping is a daily business, you do not want to end up with a unit where the occupant will be constantly disturbed by the noise of pump. Sub selling those units or renting out those units will be more difficult than a normal unit. As there will always be a pump room at the ground level, it will also be wise to avoid unit immediately above the pump room.

As owning a condo unit is getting more costly, check carefully before commit on buying, talk to the sale representatives, do not believe everything they say, some will tell you that the pump runs only once in a while, some will say that there will be more privacy living above or below the water tank room as there are no people living in the water tank room, some will say that it is a water tank room without telling you that there are actually pumps in the room.

Of course there are also good developers that provide proper rubber bearing to cushion the vibration of the pump or lay the proper insulation to prevent the noise from the pumps from affecting the neighbouring units. I say it is best to avoid those units especially the unit below or above the pump room which will be affected most by vibration and noise from the pump.

2. Lift core

When buying high rise condo unit, it is very important to note that the unit that one is choosing does not share a wall with the lift core. High rise condo are equipped with lift or high speed lift where the up and down movement of the lift cars are guilded by rails attached to the wall of the lift core. If a condo unit has wall that share the same wall with the lift core, it is inevitably that to some extent that the noise and vibration as the result of the movement of the lift cars can be transmitted to the condo unit. How much noise or vibration is transmitted depend on the structural design of the condo itself, if the structure is designed with reinforced concrete wall, then the noise transmitted may only be minimal, brick wall results in more noise being transmitted.

Ideally there should be a buffer such as staircase area or any other utility area between the condo wall and the lift core wall so that the noise from the lift car movement can be well insulated from being transmitted to the condo unit.

However, how much noise there is also depend on the type or quality of the lift and the thickness of the wall of the lift core. In the most optimistic case where good quality lifts are being used together with thick structural lift core wall, the noise transmitted will be very minimal.

But then again, many such information are beyond reach by ordinary buyers and it is better to play safe rather than saddled with a condo unit which are constantly being disturbed by the unwanted noise from the lift car movement.

3. Roof

The price of condo units at higher floor tend to be higher compared with the lower floor units as most higher floor units command better view. In most cases, the bigger units such as duplex or penthouse are also purposely designed to situate at the top most few floors. It is important to note the type of roof of the building when one is buying a unit at the top most floor, one should check if the roof is a tiled roof or concrete flat roof. Both types of roof if constructed properly would not pose any problem to the dweller of the top most floor.

However, there is one scenario where reinforced concrete roof can pose a problem. I had the opportunity to observe a case where the roof of a duplex unit is a reinforced concrete flat roof and the concrete roof also serve as the compound for the penthouse at the floor above. The subject building was designed with staggered height whereby the middle section is two floor higher to accommodate the penthouse at middle section with the duplex at the lower section at the side. With the reinforced concrete flat roof of duplex serving as the compound of the penthouse sound like wonderful idea but the problem surfaced when the owner of the penthouse decided to renovate his compound by putting on beautiful tiles. In the process of putting on the tiles, certain hacking would have to be carried out and unknowingly the waterproofing material to prevent seepage of water through the reinforced concrete roof is damaged. After completion of the tile laying, the penthouse owner has a beautiful compound but the duplex owner begin to suffer as the reinforced concrete roof started to have seepage during rain as the waterproofing is now not perfect and rain water starts to seep through the roof, the seepage may not be serious enough to cause a leaking roof but the roof will most of the time be wet because of the continuous seepage. Practically water is retained in the reinforced concrete roof until a prolonged dry season dry the roof. The seepage cause not only the roof to be wet but also the walls as water will find its way downward due to gravity flow. With the wet roof and walls, paint start to peel off and fungus developed.

However one may say that any defect to building can be rectified but the problem highlighted above is more complicated as the roof which serve as the compound of the penthouse cannot be accessed other than going through the door of the penthouse. The owner of the penthouse does not suffer any ill effect out of his renovation and therefore will not allow anyone to enter his house for any rectification works.

For the owner of the duplex below, the leaking problem could only be rectified at the floor above, the management couldn’t do much as the compound is part of the penthouse and considered as private property. The owner of the duplex can resort to legal recourse to compel the owner of the penthouse to carry out the rectification works but that would be time consuming.

Therefore if one is buying a condo with reinforced concrete flat roof above, make very sure that the roof is part of the common properties where the management can gain access to the roof if there is any damage to the waterproofing system.

4. Car park

Condominium for sale from developer especially those high end condominium is packaged with a minimum of two car parks as accessory parcel to the sale & purchase agreement. The car parks are already allocated for each unit of condo unit before the sale and when one is buying a condo, always ask for the car park layout to ensure that you like the car parks location as much as you like that particular condo unit. The two or three car parks allocated are usually in the same location, usually side by side. Recently a friend had purchased a condo unit and she forgot to check the car park layout and she later found out that her two car parks are separated by the car park ramp. Not a big deal though but may be important for those who like their cars to be parked side by side. An attempt to change the car park location after signing of sale & purchase agreement is rather difficult or should I say next to impossible as every single car park would have been allocated to a condo unit.

As car parks are key component to condo living, be very sure you like the car parks location too before you sign above the dotted line.

5. Refuse area

All high rise condo block are designed with a refuse room at every floor to allow the residents to dispose off their rubbish without taking it to the ground floor. When one is buying a condo unit, what is normally given by the sale person to the potential buyer is a beautiful brochure that shows the location plan, site plan, floor plans, building perspective, specifications and all other information that the developer wants the buyer to know. Thing like the exact location of the refuse room is never clearly indicated in the brochure, the refuse room is normally located at the common area at each floor and because there are many other facilities like the riser duct, escape staircase, meter room etc within the common area, it is inevitably that the refuse room will be closer to certain units. Therefore always ask the sale person specifically where is the exact location of the refuse room before finalising on the purchase. You sure would not want to end up buying a unit where the refuse room is close to your unit.

However if the unit that you like is close to the refuse room, then make very sure that the refuse room is designed with double doors, two layers of door whereby if one set of doors is not fully closed, chances that the other set of doors will be closed, which mean that when a resident wanted to dispose off rubbish in the refuse room , he or she will have to go through one set of doors after another. The two sets of door will minimise the smell of rubbish from escaping from the refuse room.

6. Air-con piping

Air conditioning is such an integral part of condo living today, a three rooms condo would need five aircon units, one for each room and one each for living and dining area. Most of the high end condo units are designed with a designated area for aircon compressor units and these area are usually accessible through windows or balcony for ease of future maintenance. Some of the reputable developers have even included the aircon units in their sale package and for those who don’t, they probably have included the aircon electrical points as well as the piping for the aircon units. However, there are some that only provide the aircon points without the piping.

Therefore when one is comparing between different projects, be sure to compare apple to apple and take into consideration the cost involved in the installation of those aircon piping as well as the drain pipe for the aircon units. While the air compressor units are required to be placed at certain designated area, the drain pipe would most ideally be required to be taken to bathroom and most of the time require certain hacking and patching which sometime can involve replacement of floor tiles and most probably will require repainting of certain area. Some developers will include aircon units and piping and sell the units at slightly higher price while some will sell at lower price and provide only the electrical points.

7. Land status

Another aspect that condo buyer need to take note of is the land status of the development project which he or she is intending to purchase a unit. The land status can either be in residential or commercial. If the land status is commercial, one can expect that the quit rent, assessment and the utilities bills will be charged at commercial rate which is higher than the rate for residential status. For those who are buying for own occupation, this may mean higher maintenance cost for the unit. For those buying for rental yield, while the utilities bill may most likely be paid by the tenant, the higher quit rent and assessment may translate to a lower rental yield.

8. Always buy top floor when buying condo for investment

The pricing of condo by most developers is that as you go higher, the price will be higher. Some buyer choose higher floor because of better view and some investor will choose lower floor or not so high floor to take advantage of cheaper price. But are higher floors more expensive as far as investor is concerned, to me, it is not really so. The higher floor is costlier and not necessary more expensive. As the buyers are billed by developer according to stages of completion. The first 10% being upon signing of sale & purchase agreement, the second 10% being upon completion of foundation and the third 15% being upon completion of structure. If one is taking a 80% loan for the purchase of condo and if he is buying a top floor, then he may only need to pay 20% and loan release will only take place when the construction of structure reach top floor, thus saving on substantial amount of interest payment. If one is buying low floor, the billing for completion of structure and all subsequent billings will be much earlier and interest charges will incur. Therefore if an investor is buying lower floor, he will incur higher interest charges whereas if he buys higher floor, he has to pay a higher purchase price but buying higher floor offer an advantage in term of better cash flow for the investor as if the investor is taking only 80% loan, he may only need to service the loan when the overall structure is almost completed, i.e. when the overall project is probably 50% completed and the number of months where interest is charged till completion is also less considering that the remaining construction time needed is much shorter compared with if one is buying lower floor.

Always buy top floor when buying condo for investment

The pricing of condo by most developers is that as you go higher, the price will be higher. Some buyer choose higher floor because of better view and some investor will choose lower floor or not so high floor to take advantage of cheaper price.

But are higher floor more expensive as far as investor is concerned, to me, it is not really so. The higher floor is costlier and not necessary more expensive. As the buyers are billed by developer according to stages of completion. The first 10% being upon signing of sale & purchase agreement, the second 10% being upon completion of foundation and the third 15% being upon completion of structure. If one is taking a 80% loan for the purchase of condo and if he is buying a top floor, then he may only need to pay 20% and loan release will only take place when the construction of structure reach top floor, thus saving on substantial amount of interest payment. If one is buying low floor, the billing for completion of structure and all subsequent billings will be much earlier and interest charges will incur. Therefore if an investor is buying lower floor, he will incur higher interest charges whereas if he buys higher floor, he has to pay a higher purchase price but buying higher floor offer an advantage in term of better cash flow for the investor as if the investor is taking only 80% loan, he may only need to service the loan when the overall structure is almost completed, i.e. when the overall project is probably 50% completed and the number of month where interest is charged is also less considering that the remaining construction time needed is much shorter compared with if one is buying lower floor.

Withdrawal from EPF to pay housing loan

The guildline for withdrawal of fund from EPF account for payment of housing installment can be reached at the following link :-

http://www.kwsp.gov.my/index.php?ch=p2members&pg=bm_p2members_wdrawtype&ac=2184

If one is having a flexi home loan where extra payment can be made to reduce interest charges and if the interest of the loan is higher than the dividend paid by EPF, then it may be worth while to apply for the fund to be withdrawn for payment of installment and instead of just paying installment, pay double installment so that the interest on loan is reduced.