Sunway City launched Villa Manja

Location plan:


Floor plans:

Project Description:
Location:Sunway SPK Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Type of Property:Villa Manja Twin Villa, 2-storey Semi-detached.
Developer:Sunway SPK Homes Sdn. Bhd.
Tenure:Freehold
No. of Units:196 units
Built-up areas:3,948 sq. ft. onwards, 45' x 90' (5+1 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms)
Discount:5% (Bumiputra); 5% early bird
Selling price:From RM1,878,888

Link to developer web site

Property sector get another boost with budget 2008

1. EPF contributors can make monthly withdrawal from account II to settle housing loan.
2. 50% reduction in stamp duty for those buying a property not exceeding RM250,000-00
3. The government has allocated a fund to provide guarantees to the banks to help those in the low income group to obtain housing loan.

Condo in Mont Kiara

Previouly, we touched on whether KL condo is priced too high, of course it is all subjected to individual intrepretation and projection. However, we do find some good condo with good architectural design which we feel is value for money when many new launching in that area are already in the region of RM700-00 per square feet. One of them is Casa Kiara II in Mont Kiara which was launched earlier this year, excellent design with all 6 corner units arranged like bangalow or semi-D in the sky, 4 high speed lifts to service the 37 storey condo, low density of only 206 units in a single block design.

Location:Jalan Kiara 5, Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Type of Property:Single Block Condominium
Developer:Amisia Sdn Bhd
Turnkey Builder:Sunway City Berhad
Project Manager:Dijaya Corporation Berhad
Tenure:Freehold
No. of Units:206

a) Typical unit (202 units) : (3+1 rooms, 3 baths)

b) Penthouse unit (4 units) :(4+1 rooms, 6 baths)
Built-up areas:

a) Typical unit : 1,375 sq.ft to 1,574 sq.ft

b) Penthouse unit : 3,126 sq ft to 3,219 sq.ft
Selling price:RM580,000 onwards

Location plan :

Site layout :

Floor Plans :

All units have been well designed with windows all round especially type A1 & A2 which share very little common wall with other units and they are like banglow whereas type B1 & B2 are like semi-detached.

Link to developer web site

Is the KL condo overpriced ?

A few recent newspaper articles reported that the price of condo within the KL city has continue to set record height and it was reported that some of the high end condo are being sold at RM2000-00 per square feet. Most of the condo have registered increase in price compared with their original price during the initial launches, some have increased by 100% from RM1000-00 per square feet during launching to a reported of RM2000-00 per square feet at current market value.

The question is whether the selling price of RM2000-00 per square feet is justifiable. There is no straight forward answer to it as it all depends on from which angle one look at it. If you compare the price with prices of condo in other countries such as Singapore or Hong Kong, then the price of RM2000-00 per square feet is still cheap by comparison. If the price is going to be affected by the effect of globalisation where there will be a lot of cross investment by citizen of various countries where many foreigners will invest in Malaysian property and if the Malaysian government continue to promote foreigner buying of Malaysian properties, then one can expect the prices of KL condo to rise further as the balancing act of money flowing to cheap properties in Malaysia or rather properties in Malaysia that is still considered cheap by many foreigners will result in demand that will sustain the rise in price of KL condo.

As for ordinary Malaysian, how should they react to the current pricing of KL condo, I guess it all boils down to return. If a condo can generate reasonable financial return, then it would be a worthwhile investment.

To quote an example, lets look at condos in the popular Mont Kiara area which are investor favourite. The average rental at the moment in Mont Kiara is about RM3-00 per square feet per month, monthly maintenance charges is about RM0-30 per square feet, therefore the net rental after taking into the account the monthly maintenance charges is RM2-70 per square feet.

Rental return for whole year = RM2-70 x 12 = RM32-40 per square feet.

Assuming an investor purchase a condo in Mont Kiara at price of RM400-00 per square feet by cash and assuming he spend additional RM50-00 per square feet in renovation and furnishing bearing in mind only furnished condo can fetch gross rental of RM3-00 per square feet per month, then his cost of purchase would be RM450-00 per square feet.

A return of RM32-40 over a purchase price of RM450-00 per square feet would be equivalent to return of

32-40 x 100 / 450 = 7-20%

which would be sufficient for ordinary investor. However the calculation does not take into account the quit rent and assessment charged by land office and local council respectively, the actual return could be slightly lower than the above.

From the above illustration, the higher the purchase price, the lower will be the rental yield or the monthly rental would have to be increased to maintain yield.

However, not all condo are purchased for rental yield, some are bought for own occupation because of their spectacular city night view, some are purchased for their prestigious address, some are purchased for flipping over the short term for capital gain. Some investor purchase because they fear that if they do not purchase now, they would not be able to afford it in the future.

If you are purchasing one for investment for rental return, then it would be wise to do some calculation before the actual purchase.

IJM to soft launch Sierra Vista in Penang

Visit IJM website

Why having a web portal is a must for housing developer

Most of the companies today are equipped with a web site, some use it to disseminate company information while other use it to promote their products. Web site is particularly useful for housing developer to introduce their new project to complement the traditional or conventional ways of advertising through the newspapers, radio or TV. By using web site to disseminate information about the new housing project, developers are able to advertise in a very cost effective way as advertising over the web is very much cheaper compared with the conventional media, not to mention the worldwide exposure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, effectively everyday until the information is taken down from the web.

In today globalised world where many foreigners invest in Malaysian properties, many potential buyers could actually gather as much information about the properties before they actually visit the showroom. The case mentioned does not only apply to foreign buyer, but also apply to out station buyer from within our country. A typical case would be if a person from Penang interested to purchase a property in Kuala Lumpur, he or she can surf the web and visit the web site of the developer and view as much information as possible before making a trip down to the showroom to visit the actual location. When the potential buyer visit the showroom , he or she may already be very familiar with the subject property and thus saving the sale person a lot of time and effort as the sale person is saved from explaining the various details.

In fact, there are many cases where potential buyers have already got a decision in their mind and they visit the showroom just to close the deal. Therefore it is extremely important for developer to include a well planned web site in their marketing strategy as having a good web site will surely make selling much easier.

Grace period or interest free period

After one is satisfied with the selection of the property he is intending to purchase, signing of the sale and purchase agreement is the next obvious step. If the property that one intend to purchase is already in the advance stage of construction, always remember to negotiate for an interest free period or grace period to allow yourself time to source for a loan as the time taken for

1. selection of loan

2. loan documentation

until the fund is released by the financier bank can be quite long. Therefore it is advisable to negotiate for a minimum of 60 days or 90 days. The interest free period is particularly important if the construction of the property is already in advance stage and if the buyer is taking maximum loan of 90% as one can expect that upon signing of sale & purchase agreement, the developer will flood the buyer with a series of progress billing that will be due 21 working days after issuance of billing that make it to about a month including the non-working days and the late payment interest is normally 10% which is higher than the loan interest rate which can be as low as zero for the first year for some loan package from certain bank. Without the interest free period, the buyer would most likely be charged hefty late payment charges as the amount of billing can be as high as 75% of purchase price which the interest calculation is based on.

However if one is buying a property where construction has yet to begin, then the issue of interest free period may not be critical but as buying a property is not something that one do very often, why not exercise your right to as much as possible before you sign above the dotted line.

Buying additional car park when purchasing condo unit

Most condominium units are packaged with a minimum of two car parks or more if the unit is big in built-up area but the majority of the condo units that are for sale by developers today come packaged with only two car parks for each unit. For most of the project, developer usually plan additional car parks either to be used as visitor car parks or waiting to be sold to those interested to purchase additional car park. Purchasing of car park can be also a form of investment if the car park allocated is two or less for each unit. Even at current time, two car parks may not be sufficient for some family with more than two cars which are rather common today. Therefore if one has additional car park, the car park can also be rented out to those who need additional car park. Good new is owning additional car park does not resulted in additional maintenance charges as the monthly maintenance charges is computed based on built-up area of the condo unit. Thus having additional car provide additional avenue for one to earn additional rental income without too much financial commitment. A note of caution though, if the car parks allocated for each unit is more than two then renting out the car park may not be feasible.

Things to note when buying highrise condo unit (part VII) - 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.

Things to note when buying highrise condo

Things to note when buying highrise condo - Part I

Things to note when buying highrise condo - Part II

Things to note when buying highrise condo - Part III

Things to note when buying highrise condo - Part IV

Things to note when buying highrise condo - Part V

Things to note when buying highrise condo - Part VI

Things to note when buying highrise condo - Part VII

Things to note when buying highrise condo unit (part VI) - 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 unit 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.

Things to note when buying highrise condo unit (part V) - refuse area

All highrise 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 a door is not fully closed, chances that the other set of door 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 door after another. The two sets of door will minimise the smell of rubbish from escaping from the refuse room.

Things to note when buying highrise condo (part IV) - car parks

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 has 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 park location too before you sign above the dotted line.

Things to note when buying highrise condo (part III) - 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 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 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 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 wall as water will find its way downward due to gravity flow. With the wet roof and wall, 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 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

Things to note when buying highrise condo (part II) - lift core

When buying highrise condo unit, it is very important to note that the unit that one is choosing does not share a wall with the lift core. Highrise condo are equipped with lift or high speed lift where the up and down movement of the lift cars are guided 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 the noise and vibration as the result of the movement of the lift car 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 or sheer wall, then the noise transmitted may only be minimal, brick wall results in more noise to be 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 the good quality lift are being used together with thick lift core wall, the noise transmitted will be very minimal.

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

Important thing to note when buying high rise apartment or condo unit

With the price of land remain high and keep on increasing and show no sign of slowing down especially in most of the major cities like Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur, many property developers with land bank in good location have embarked on building highrise luxurious condominium which are often dubbed as "semi-detached" or "bangalow" 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 RM1000-00 per square feet or more in the Kuala Lumpur area depending on specification and location.

Some of the condo block that boast 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.

All the highrise condo blocks are equipped with a water storage tank at the very top of the building and the authorities always require storage of one day water demand for the entire block. 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 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 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 to the roof top. Say if a building is 38 storey high, you may find a water tank and pump room at 19 floor or a bit higher or lower depending on the design of the consultants.

When purchasing a condo unit, purchasers are often presented with a sale chart which show the selling price of units at different level, 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 that 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.

As there will always be a pump room a 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 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 construct 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 and above the pump room which will be affected most by vibration and noise from the pump.

Real estate property gain tax

With the abolishment of real estate property gain tax by Malaysian government about one month ago, the real estate and housing industries is given a real boost indeed. Whether the abolishment will bring immediate positive effect in the industry is yet to be seen but at individual level, it definitely will affect the way people make decision with regard to property transaction. People buying property for investment will now find it easier to sell as they now are able to sell at lower price as they do not need to make provision for real property gain tax if they were to sell within the first few years after their purchase as the gain tax were the highest during the first few years. In essence, an investor can buy a property and immediately flip the property for a profit without subjecting to real property gain tax. The abolishment will also benefit housing developer as developer can expect increase in sale as more investors are expected to snap up property for fast profit as property can now be regarded as a product that can be traded.

Previously, property investors will wait a few years before contemplating selling their properties to lessen the effect of property gain tax on their profit as the tax was as high as 30% for the first year, now they can sell as soon as a buyer is available. The abolishment will undoubtedly increase the number of transaction in the real estate industry.

Real Estate Forum

Nowadays ,there are many real estate web sites that are equipped with real estate forum. The forums are indeed a very important feature of the internet today as it form the platform where users of internet all over the world are able to participate in a discussion on certain issue. But the forums are actually more than a discussion platform, it is also a place where user can find advice or solution to his particular problem. In the process of all those daily discussion, participants leave behind many threads which form a vast database when the forum has been running for a long time and whenever a user has a certain question which he need an answer, first before posting question over the forum, he can actually search the forum with the key words, who knows, someone may have ask the same question before and all threads related to the key word will be presented and possibly with the answer he needs. Thus the forum allow interaction between visitors of the real estate forum and enable them to share experience and opinion.

For the webmaster, it is a different ball game all together. Having a forum as a sub web to the main web such as having a real estate forum in addition to the real estate web site increase the activities at the overall web site as if the forum is popular then users will come back again and again and possibly also invite their friends to join the forum. The increase activities means having more pages for the search engine to index and thus help to improve search ranking in the internet. Moreover in practical sense, the participant also help to build content for the web site without much effort from the webmaster and webmaster can tap on vast knowledge of many participants to offer view, advice or solution to any particular real estate problems.

In addition, webmaster can also choose to participate in forum set up by others. A real estate webmaster can participate in other real estate forum to gain knowledge and at the same time build back link to his own real estate web site as users are usually allowed to enter their web address in the profile as well as the signature which is shown with each and every posting of his.

Thus the forum allow borderless interaction beyond people that users practically know and at the same time offer various benefit for webmaster in marketing his web site to the world which is flooded with billion of web pages.

Chicken and egg story in real estate development

Gone are the days when developer can expect to sell most of their houses right after launches and before actual construction commence on site. This is as oppose to previous peaks in economy when properties are snapped up even before construction even begin. Many developers especially those new developers who are just starting out would sure hope to sell their units before construction so that the project is effectively financed by the purchasers which will then very much lessen their financial burden and this especially apply to those new developers without track record who were not able to secure bridging loan to finance their construction.

Most developers especially new developer purchase their development land using bank finance and there are interest payment to meet every month. While some may say that they prefer to commence construction after they sell certain number of units but the situation today may not be favourable especially for those new developer without track record as potential purchasers may prefer to wait until the construction begin and until at least the sample house is ready or at least wait until construction is way over 50% or 60% completed so as to lower their risk before actually commit their hard earn cash to purchase the house. So if the developer wait for sale before begin on construction and while potential purchase wait for construction before committing to buy, then there will would be very little sale materialise while the cost of developer rise every month with the interest served on the land purchase loan. Hence it is like there ought to be an egg before there would be a chicken and without chicken, there would not be an egg.

Therefore, it is imperative that new developers focus on speeding up on construction and forget about sale for the time being and when construction reach a certain threshold, sale will materialise.

Market your real estate web site by writing articles

Setting up a real estate web site is easier than most people think. A real estate web site with portal, classifieds, blog, real estate directory, article directory & forum can be set up in a matter of days.

But what is the use if no body know of the existence of your web site. After completing the web site, there is always satisfaction that finally one is able to be part of ever booming cyberspace where news and articles everywhere suggested that there are indeed great earning potential, moreover not being in the web is kind of strange these days, many people have their own blog or for that matter blogs. However reality soon set in, sitting in front of the computer, checking the various statistic generated by the server provider or the script you have inserted into your web page, can be a very frustrating affair as suddenly you find to your horror that nobody or not many people are vi sting the beautify web site or the best web site you claimed to have built in your lifetime, the worst is that you may find that majority of the traffic to your site is none other than yourself.

So, no wonder there are so many web sites out there that try to outdo each other by offering the best tips in SEO, short for search engine optimisation, meaning that web site has to be optimised for the many search engine out there that determine the life and death of your web site. If your web site is consistently being shown at the front page of the search results of the major search engine for the targeted key words, then you can be rest assured that you may have your fair share of success with your web site. But then how do we ensure that our web site will be returned in the search results instead of other web sites, the main method is to improve the search ranking of your web site by increasing the back link to your web site or simply known as link popularity.

The most common method is to trade link with other web sites or simply to submit your link to directories but you only get one back link for each effort and it is unknown if the back link that you have obtained will still be linking to you six months down the road. The method which most SEO advocate now is the writing of articles and submit them to article directories. By writing good articles, there is a good chance that your articles may be adopted by other webmasters as additional quality content for their web sites, as all users of article directory are required to use the article in its original state which include a resource box which usually contain the link to the authors' web site and when one article you have written is used by 100 webmasters, then you have 100 one way back links and yes that is leveraging effect being exploited to the fullest in building back links. So instead of spending a lot of time carrying out the tedious link trading, why not sit back and write one good real estate article and submit it to a real estate article directory and begin the journey of building back link in a more effective way.