PROPCAFE™ Peek : Casa Green Bukit Jalil by Amber Homes

Background

Casa Green at Bukit Jalil was a small boutique development launched in 2015 by Amber Homes – a developer based in Cheras.

Click
here
 if you want to read our previous review on Casa Green Bukit Jalil.

PROPCAFE™ knows very little about Amber Homes and their actual products prior 2015 but started to catch our attention when their project of Casa Green Bukit Jalil did gain some fame for them. Casa Green Bukit Jalil (total units of 980) was sold out within a very short period including their RUMAHWIP was not spared.

The scene of BBB (Buy Buy Buy) at Amber Homes sales gallery in 2015 still vivid until today. Amber Homes said the sales was beyond their expectation; overseeing the crowd swamping into the sales gallery surrounding the scaled model.

“They bought Casa Green Bukit Jalil as if like buying vegetable in the market” according to the developer.

Today while still living in their past glorious moment, the developer has been asking me the same question whether did they sell below market price back then?

“Those were the days and I think it was a
fair
 price” with a big grin
 on my face I answered.

The truth is PROPCAFE hardly commend developer for selling “under-priced”. In our opinion,
fair rice
 would be a sufficient answer – in a humble way. 😛

The Blind Date – Anxiety & Curiosity

Photo Courtesy Of www.chatelaine.com

Although Casa Green Bukit Jalil was a new milestone for Amber Homes but the fact is we know as little as you know about them. There was no show unit for Casa Green Bukit Jalil, not much of information available from the Google search and not that many past projects available where we can actually do a cross referencing at least to our standard.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil was sold out merely based on few big posters hanging on the wall, few pages of A4 sized brochures, scaled model and of course the sales and marketing pitching talk. If I were the first-time home buyer, I might be getting a bit nervous. As the time is approaching nearer to the date of Vacant Possession, most often the feeling of anxiety and curiosity on the end product will grow much especially for the first-time home buyer.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Panorama Facility Level

The closest analogy and feeling where I can relate to this perhaps will be something like a blind date where all and everything you know is just from a photo (where mostly likely the version of photo that you had seen was after being edited “professionally”). 😛

On the actual day of your date (the day you receive your keys and seeing your new house for the first time), you will only see your date in actual for the first time and most if not the first thing you would want to verify is the person sitting in front of you whether look exactly the same as in the photo which you are holding in your hand. And this is what this article is all about –
Expectation Vs Reality

Expectation Vs Reality

Photo Courtesy of freepik.com

Most of the time, we will be disappointed 😀 . We tend to have higher expectation due to the influence of the fancy marketing materials or the sweet talk from the sales person. If you want to avoid disappointment, please do more research and home work prior signing off on the dotted line that require your life time commitment. Lack of knowledge and due diligence will not only limit yourself exposed to higher risk but also the worst-case scenario which is being scammed.

For those who want to be safer, you might want to consider another option where to buy ready completed products from the Build-To-Sell scheme projects or sub-sales secondary market. Then again it comes with different kind of surprises – The limitation of preferred choice, higher cost of purchasing and the selling price not definitely but more likely to be higher as compared to initial launching price.

Filling the Gap

Generally, a typical customer experience of a property buying journey is divided into 12 stages and normally will begin their journey with

1. Self-Evaluation & Planning ->
2. Information and Data Research
 ->
3. Property Analysis
 -> 4. Decision Making -> 5. Payment Execution -> 6. Vacant Possession/Keys collection -> 7. Defects Inspection -> 8. Rectification -> 9. Shopping & Renovation -> 10. Fine Detailing -> 11. Monitoring & Observation -> 12. Maintaining
.

From what we noticed here is, there is a huge gap within –

Stage 2 – Information and Data Research
 where normally people tends to get stuck here due to difficulty in harvesting information and lack of information available to the public especially property related as compared to other consumer class which is more popular like car, electronic gadget, fashion, food and traveling. It can be quite frustrating when we cannot reach deeply for information related to property especially on the final actual products itself.

There are few major property portals in Malaysia keeping us updated on the latest news or information related to property but most, if not all, of the information is touching the surface where we personally think it is inadequate. These portals are often being perceived as an online platform for Buy, Sell and Rent and not as main source of detail information for new or existing development.

Water Feature

Stage
3 – Property Analysis
 where people will be having quite a struggle due to lack of experience, knowledge and resources before reaching to the next stage which is yet another kind of different challenges to them. This is where PROPCAFE™ playing our part to fill in the gap by sharing our PROPCAFE™ Review.

We hope that one day PROPCAFE™ will be able to fill in this gap as much as possible to make the experience of property buying journey becomes more enjoyable, pleasant and convenient by sharing our reviews regardless of upcoming new projects or actual completed products.

As for now, we hope this article will be able to fill the small gap between for those who are keen to know more about
Casa Green Bukit Jalil
 as well as about the developer –
Amber Homes
 .

Sneak Peek – Warning! It is a ¾ Cooked

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Covered Walkway (Glass Roof)

In this article, we will share with you on the actual product of Casa Green Bukit Jalil itself although is still ¾ cooked. We managed to sneak in for a close-up site visit of this project which is still under construction. Please do not expect that this article will be similar to our “PROPCAFE™ 360 Degree View” type of review where we usually cover only when it is fully completed for hand over.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil is supposed due to be handed over around in
May 2019
 but based on our last visit on 18
th
 April and if there is no unforeseen circumstances; it should be ready somewhere in
3Q 2018
with Amber Homes proven track of records where their projects usually will be delivered earlier than expected.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Jacuzzi

There are few reasons why we do a sneak peak on this project now even it is not yet completed for hand over. Firstly, we know that there are some Casa Green Bukit Jalils’ buyers very eager to know and can’t wait until end of the year to see their baby.

Secondly is because we have received a strong request from our readers for a PROPCAFE Review on Amber Homes latest development.  After waited for 3 years since the launched of Casa Green Bukit Jalil in 2015, Amber Homes had finally launched their new transit-oriented development (TODe) with direct linked to MRT Station Taman Connaught SBK26 at Cheras –
 Aster Residence
.

Yes, we hear you and before we jumping straight to the review of Aster Residence perhaps we hope this article will give you all some insights of the developer by using their latest current ongoing project Casa Green Bukit Jalil as a reference. This might not be the best but it should give you some pointers on their Aster Residence Cheras which is a different class from Casa Green Bukit Jalil.

Common Area

The Access – Jalan Jalil Perwira 2

The access to Casa Green Bukit Jalil from Jalan Jalil Perwira 2

Jalan Jalil Perwira 2 – Left is the Z-Residence by Trinity and on the right is Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (Tamil) Ladang Bukit Jalil

The access road to guard-house and drop-off area in front of Casa Green Bukit Jalil. You can see that developer is planting trees on the pavement to curtain off the view of the light industrial lots.

Entrance Statement & Drop off Area

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Drop Off Area

Façade

 Casa Green Bukit Jalil Facade Block A

 Casa Green Bukit Jalil Block A Facade Inside

 Casa Green Bukit Jalil Facade Block B

 Casa Green Bukit Jalil Block B Facade Outside

 Casa Green Bukit Jalil Block B Facade Inside

 Casa Green Bukit Jalil Facade Block C

 Casa Green Bukit Jalil Block C Facade Inside

Overall the façade does not seem deviate much from the scaled model. It is not the best but it is reasonable for its price range and acceptable for its class of development. We think the colour scheme could be better.

Car Park

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Car Park Column Distance (Centre to Centre)

We are surprised on the distance of the support column to the next column is spanned quite a distance (
9600mm from centre to centre
 of the columns where the car park lot size is W2400mm x L4800mm) away from each other. It is good news to those owners who own the car park lot which located beside the beams as compared to the in the middle.

From the photo, you can see how generous the space is given from the beam to the car (
approximately 750-800mm
)where you can fully open the car door without hitting the column. It will be a great advantage when some time if you want to load bulky items where require your car door to be fully opened and not to mention that making parking easier for someone like me who is clumsy and not good in parking.

It is not a must or anything which is crucial but it is good when the developer is being generous. There are just some developers willing to make the distance from column to column as close as possible to have more parking.

Facilities – Level 8

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Infinity Swimming Pool

The moment you enter the facility on the level 8, you will see a lot of water elements as per the scale model where almost occupying 50% of the total floor area. It is not really a big area so you see everything with one glance and you definitely won’t miss the 17m x 50m outdoor Olympic full-length infinity swimming pool.

We could not manage to see the 4000sf indoor gymnasium due to it is still in progress. The facilities  are not state of the art but we believe are sufficient for the residents and practical for day-to-day use. At this point of reading, most probably you might had forgotten the price tag for this development and we will remind you again of that later.

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The view from the facility floor of Kesas Highway is quite nice if you don’t mind the noise.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil View of Kesas Highway From Level 8

The Inside

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Type D Living Hall 01

The Yard

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The first thing that amazed us was the yard area. It has been some time that we have not seen such a large yard area (for Type B, C and D with 2×1 tiles on the floor except Type A) given the price tag of this property. When we are talking about the real cooking here, the dry kitchen alone itself normally is not enough for the Asian way of cooking. That is why that many of us will look at the opportunity to add on a wet kitchen at the yard area if possible.

The yard can be easily converted into a nice and proper wet kitchen area given with such a generous space. We will leave the final design of the kitchen to you. You might want to refer to our
renovation tips
 before you start the real work. 😉

Quality, Fittings & Finishing

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Type A Master Bedroom

All bedrooms come with laminated wooden flooring while the living hall, dining and kitchen area comes with
2×2 mirror polished /high gloss porcelain tiles
 (except type A). I can’t comment much on the quality of the workmanship but with a quick glance, it is not perfect but it seems fine with me with some minor defects and probably because I had seen the worst in my life.  For quality of workmanship, you really can’t tell in one day or two, you need to live there for a period of time to monitor on it.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Type D Master Bedroom Window

One of the thing which I like most is the large window panels and the sliding glass door. Amber Homes really max out the window glass panel area as much as possible including the window at the toilet area and kitchen. All master bedroom’s window ( and Type D Bedroom 1)  come with a
3-piece glass panels window
 while the rest of the bedrooms come with a
minimum of 2-piece panels glass window
.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Type D Bathroom 1

Although it is good to have a large window and large sliding glass door to maximize the natural lighting in to your unit but you need to face other issues such as cleaning, and the increase cost of curtain blinds and grill due to larger area.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Door Architrave

The other small tiny little thing which I noticed was all the doorway frame come with architrave ( except Type A) which is uncommon today for property priced at this range due to cost saving. Architrave is mainly for cosmetic purpose.

Architrave

noun

1. (in classical architecture) a main beam resting across the tops of columns, specifically the lower third entablature.

2. The moulded frame round a doorway or window.

2.1 A moulding round the exterior of an arch.

Architrave is the decorative timber moulding fitted around the casings of internally
doors
, windows, and loft hatches – the purpose of
architrave
 is to hide the joint between the wall/ceiling and the timber casings. It also hides any subsequent shrinkage and movement between the two.

Comfort and Connected

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Type D Room Corridor

All bedrooms including the living hall comes with
pre-installed air conditioner
 units (except Type A). You can save a lot of time and hassle on this. In addition, all units come with
broadband ready
 which is becoming a norm and basic requirement for any new development today.

We will leave the photos to do the talking from here. Enjoy!

The Actual Unit Gallery

Type D 1003.49 sf – 3 Rooms + 3 Baths

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Type B 1003.49 sf – 3 Rooms + 3 Baths

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Type A 825.16 sf – 3 Rooms + 2 Baths (RUMAWIP*)

*Without Balcony & Air Conditioner Units.

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There’s Always Room For Improvement

Photo Credit to http://www.santabanta.com

A person who never makes a mistake never tried anything new – Albert Einstein

There are few area where we think can be further improved and some can be easily done. First of all, we noticed the absence of door stoppers in all units. Owners might want to consider to install it by themselves to prevent the door knob from further damaging their wall. You never know if someone as strong as the Hulk might cause a hole in your pocket!

From our observation, the overall development seems like lack of landscaping and green feature.  We doubt there is much area for the green by looking at the design and the size of the development but it would be quite unfair to comment about this now since it is yet to be completed. Shall we revisit it again after completion?

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The Block A RUMAWIP’s corridor with cement flooring and only partially tiled in front of the unit entrance is rather a bit unaesthetic but we think it is compensated with better fitting and finishing of the unit given that the price of the RUMAWIP Type A 825.16sf comes with 3 rooms + 2 bathrooms is about RM300,000 nett . Although we had visited many completed projects but for Casa Green Bukit Jalil RUMAWIP is our first time under RUMAWIP development so we can’t really have much references for comparison in the category of RUMAWIP. Nevertheless, if you were given a choice, which would you choose – a pleasant corridor or a better built, fitting and finishing home? Inside or Outside?

*Updated – 27th June 2016

Block A RUMAWIP’s corridor comes with fully tiled. The photo taken during our previous visit should be WIP. 😉

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Block A RUMAWIP Corridor with fully tiled – Photo taken 26th June 2018

Time For Curtain Down…

Quality

Amber Homes might not have a big database or famous developer like other big boys in Malaysia nor their projects are known to many people but that does not mean their product, quality and customer service are any inferior to other major developers.

From a one-day site visit, the actual product seems does not deviate much from the scaled model or their marketing material. Amber Homes has delivered as what they had committed on the paper so far.

For quality wise in term of defects like water leakage or other structural defect, we cannot give much comment on it because usually this kind of quality issue will only surface after a period of time when owner starts living in the unit. If there is any major issue or defects, we hope Casa Green Bukit Jalil’s owner willing to share their defects with our readers here in the future by commenting below here.

Pricing

At this juncture of reading, some of you probably might have forgotten the price tag of Casa Green Bukit Jalil. We would like to refresh the readers again that the product we are seeing here today which is located at Bukit Jalil
was
 priced at
RM300,000 nett or ~RM364 psf for Type A 825.16 sf
 (which fall under RUMAWIP category) and
RM440,000+ to RM460,000+ or ~RM460 psf for Type B 1003.49 sf and Type C 1003.20 sf
 which comes with 3 Bedrooms, 3 Bathrooms and 4 air conditioner units.

Developer

As a summary from what we gathered here using Casa Green Bukit Jalil as our reference, Amber Homes is those developers who strongly believe in building a
practical home
 and not just a house. Amber Homes would rather invest more on
practicality, comfortability, safety and product quality as their main priority
 and putting the
aesthetic requirement as secondary
 for the given budget to work around. When come to marketing, high chances it will be the last thing which the developer will really fancy at.

Casa Green Bukit Jalil Panorama Facility Level Photo 2

In addition, aesthetic elements usually are fragile, costly and require high maintenance which come with a price. In our opinion, at the very beginning Casa Green Bukit Jalil was not meant for this market segment of home buyers who are seeking for “
aesthexotic”
 (aesthetic + exotic) development. We think that explain a lot on most of the developments by Amber Homes until today are those non-fancy type of development but rather just an ordinary and practical from inside to outside.

All in all, we think the actual product of Casa Green Bukit Jalil is quite worthwhile product given its location and selling price.

Congratulations to all the owners of Casa Green Bukit Jalil

What’s next?

Aster Residence Cheras Site to MRT Taman Connaught

We hope that this review able to give you some insights of the developer and their final products but please bear in mind, our advise is that this can only be used as a reference and should’t be set as the benchmark for future development.

Aster Residence Site

Now the big question is what about Aster Residence Cheras? For those who want to know what we think and don’t want to miss our review on Aster Residence, subscribe to our blog by email or follow us on our
facebook
 or
Instagram
. We will share our review on Aster Residence soon after the general election 😉

As for now, stay tuned and relax. Thank you! 🙂

-The Intern-

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Related


PROPCAFE™ Peek: The Riyang @ Happy Garden By Suntrack

Happy Garden, Happy Days

Happy Garden always comes close to my heart due to my crazy nine months stay at Pearl Point condominium at Old Klang Road as a student more than 20 years ago. Strolling around OUG, Happy Gardens, and Kuchai Lama from afternoon till late night were my usual activities. It was unproductive but it definitely goes into my once in a life time fond memories. Well, after so many years, Old Klang Road has been massively upgraded where residential and commercial buildings were mushroomed everywhere in this part of Kuala Lumpur, and of course it includes Happy Garden. PROPCAFE here to review one of the latest launches –
The Riyang by Suntrack
.

Instead of building more affordable and high density small pad for Gen Y and millennials, The Riyang is designed for family orientated owners who appreciate space and practical home. After Gembira Residen’s success here, The Riyang provides a fresher and newer property as a choice for Happy Garden fans and residents to own or upgrade.

While PROPCAFE searching for the information regarding The Riyang online, we bumped into The Riyang thread in Lowyat property forum and realised that we do not need to do much works as the answers by the developer in the forum are so detail that it has more or less covered all the important information. It is great to see the engagement of developer with potential customers or property enthusiast in the forum. PROPCAFE, therefore, decided to put up this PROPCAFE Peek to include all the valuable inputs from the forum so that interested parties do not need to keep scrolling up and down the thread. Instead, everyone can just get a quick glance here with a clean-up version. This is the first time PROPCAFE doing this because we cannot help but want to “preserve” these good information from developer which is very helpful to all property enthusiast. PROPCAFE founders have contributed a lot in the old property forum like myrealestate, unfortunately all information were gone by now after it closed down, so we will make sure it won’t happen again for The Riyang. Of course, being PROPCAFE, we won’t be stingy to share our view too on this project.

Note: Quote-Unquote “ “ with Italic = Developer’s responses in forum

Developer – Who and Track Record?

Suntrack has proven that they are responsible boutique developer over years. The management team is very hands-on in their projects and always communicate with potential buyers. In many occasions, they even amended their plan to fix the valid concerns raised by potential buyers. The down to earth young boss showed so much energy to discuss and address issues raised from customers also proved that they certainly value customers a lot which unfortunately rare nowadays. PROPCAFE visited countless properties and sales offices and many times, we saw the bosses came with bodyguards or escorted by the management personnel to tour the sales office with journalists. The buyers just like the spectators there to watch the government VIP show. We thought, aren’t they supposed to greet the customers? Opps, sorry, I couldn’t help but thought about my previous experiences. Back to developer profile, previous project by Suntrack like Summer Glades, Cyberjaya and the Hub, Bangi were well executed on time with with QLASSIC (CIDB construction built quality certification) accreditation scoring more that 70 marks.
“Suntrack’s Head of Project Management department is also a qualified QLASSIC assessor herself and she has been driving our ISO9001 and 5S with much passion”
. Their responses to its defects were very commendable too according to the few buyers that we know of. Hopefully, PROPCAFE would have a chance to visit their soon-to-be VPed project called Kanvas in Cyberjaya in near future so that we can share it with our followers again. Five words: Friendly, reliable, and responsible developer!

Concept of The Riyang

PROPCAFE: Family Home, Space, Comfort, Big Balcony, Convenience, Two Generation Home in Matured Township. It is a freehold 35 storey property that comes with 212 family friendly units with only 8 unit per floor. Yes, 212 units. Sound rare in the market nowadays.

Two years ago, all property enthusiast and own-stayers screamed about the unaffordable price of properties. However, with government initiatives and pending demand from market, developers have taken up the responsibilities to offer many development with RM300k to RM400k range of properties last two years. However, there is no perfect world as it also means that projects are now tends to be high density together with some cost saving features e.g. less lifts, less common area, less carpark lots, less landscape and etc. Less x 3. Do not get us wrong, PROPCAFE loves affordable properties which allow more Malaysian own their HOME, but PROPCAFE certainly not encourage the speculation or heavy investment in this segment. Many times, we saw investors rushed to BBB these projects. It is not difficult to understand it by just think about the problem of Millennium Bridge in London when it first built. When there are too many people having the same steps and directions, then you will see the issue. The Riyang, somehow, provides some fresh air to the market by offering the rare product for buyers especially own-stayers. Let’s admit it, it is not investable for short to medium term basis as the rental yield and absolute price may not work in favour for Riyang based on the affordability of rental and income level in current cycle, however, it is certainly a property that you will consider for ownstay if you like this matured location. It is not just merely offering big space to owners but The Riyang has put many elements into this project to live up their slogan “Luxurious spaces, BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS” for happy families.

“Ria + Sayang = Riyang”

The Riyang, other tower includes an affordable housing called Selesa Apartment. Selesa Apartment, 91 units, is a Rumawip Scheme for first time house buyers which will be built concurrently with The Riyang. By looking at the scaled model, it does look good and neat. Definitely one of the nicest affordable RUMAWIP that we have seen. See photo below. It attached with the Riyang’s car park and has a different entrance (straight ground level of car park area) which indicated below.

Location – Convenience vs. Congestion

Matured – You just need to look at the map below. How many more empty lands available? Would you buy a property that give you a desert view? Long term play, maybe J. For ownstay purpose in few year time, No Way Jose! Ok, it could be just me and I believe there are more factors and views from other property owners to call it as Home at “Sib Beh Far” place. So, no offend, ya.

“As for congestion, let me start by saying that Happy Garden is within the 10km radius from KLCC. A city does not reduce congestion by reducing development. A city should embrace congestion and improve public transport to welcome development.”

“Happy Garden, in general, is still very low in density when considering the many landed houses and low density apartment (like the 8 storey Gembira Park). I don’t deny the congestion in the internal roads. However, immediately after the traffic light under the bridge, we are connected to NPE, MEX, BESRAYA, SMART and Seremban Highway. Construction is now underway to build a direct flyover to ease traffic at the same bridge junction. Under the local plan, Jalan Gembira is earmarked to connect across the MEX into Sungai Besi town.”

“The entire Kuala Lumpur did not have proper town planning at the beginning. As the city grow, plans were then put in place. So we now have highways and MRT etc. A new MRT station will be build besides Ajinomoto site which will be one stop away from Bandar Malaysia and the high speed rail stop.”

In short, to reduce the pain, take a ride of MRT. The station mentioned above is  just about 1.2km away which scheduled to be ready in two years after the completion of The Riyang. Walk or drive, your call!

Surrounding of The Riyang

“The Riyang is situated in a very old and mature part of Happy Garden. The apartments beside are old but they are quite well kept. Their residents are mostly local folks who have stayed there for generations. As for the temporary shed like the used car, it is a matter of time for the land to be developed and moved away. The car wash right beside The Riyang will be asked to move to make way for road widening.”

“That area highlighted (red circle) belongs to another old time developer and to our current knowledge, they have no plan to sell or develop that land. When this subject land is developed, Jalan Gembira (Double Carriageway) will continue straight into the subject land and cross over to the road reserve in Taman Salak Selatan (please note a stretch of green belt there), in accordance to the DBKL master plan. A bridge will be required to cross over but we have no current information on how that bridge will link with the MEX highway (as the Master Plan did not show that information).

The current traffic congestion in Kuchai Lama is largely caused by the upgrading construction works for flyover from Besraya Highway (Jalan Kuchai Lama) into NPE. Once that is completed, the traffic should be better.”

Site Photo

Amenities

You don’t need to be Map Guru to endorse this part of KL City. Old Klang Road, OUG, Happy Gardens, and Kuchai Lama as it comes with all amenities and accessible by many highways and exit roads (see below):

It sandwiched by existing shops, buildings and residential properties.
“Yes, the project is surrounded by existing matured neighbourhood. Advantage is the convenient amenities around the corner like dentist, supermarket, food, tuition centre, and etc.”

Sometimes, we have too much information on amenities. As a family person and property enthusiast, I basically looks at only few when comes to own use property: (1) Right school for my kids, short and long term; (2) Eateries and good size mall (both community mall and regional mall) for leisure. (3) Lake and Park; (4) Easy accessible to major highways; (5) MRT and LRT (sorry I am not KTM person and the experience was rather bad!). I would say, other than (3), The Riyang ticks all. So now we can go deeper to find out more before we see whether it is a Yes for ownstay.

Orientation and View – View Obstruction?

South View

North View (See the photo in section above – Surrounding of The Riyang)

“On the western facing facade of The Riyang condominium, level 5 and 6 are same level with the level 8 and roof of neighbour Gembira Park Apartment. Based on the roof level, Gembira Park is 9-storey. Ground floor to Selesa is 2-storey below the ground floor of Gembira Park. So at 12 storey, The Riyang is one floor above the roof of Gembira Park. The northern facing units are also blocked by Sri Desa Condo at level 5,6 and 7. However, it has a nice swimming pool view.”

Based on our site visit, the neighbour Gembira Park apartments look acceptable unlike many rundown apartments in Klang Valley (See below).

The units with Good View? How about KLCC North View?

“The Sri Desa block directly beside our northern boundary is 12 storey tall (including the roof). You can count the building height from our aerial image. The floor level of our LG2 is 1 floor below the ground floor of Sri Desa. For us to match the roof top of Sri Desa, it will be approximately 13 storey of equivalent height for Riyang. That will be LG2, LG1, G,,M, 1, 2, 3, 4 (level 4 podium deck is double volume two storey tall) 5, 6, 7, 8. Level 8 and below will be obstructed by Sri Desa for the view BUT they get to enjoy the beautiful swimming pool view. In any case, Level 9 and below has been priced with a deep discount due to the less panoramic views.

Level 12 is not obstructed. One of the advantage of our mature neighbourhood is that our neighbours are “short”.  Alternatively, you can visually count the height of sri desa at the physical site and then compare that against our scale model and our approved building plan.

We cannot guarantee you a clear view of the city skyline from any floors of The Riyang. There are other buildings within the 7km between The Riyang and the City. (Just to add on. The current Housing Development Act prohibits us from promising any panoramic views from our project to avoid misrepresentation)

In short, at the riyang, only units at level 5 and 6 at north and west view are obstructed by neighbouring buildings. The rest of the units have very nice view. Our northern and eastern units (on higher floors) has view towards to city. “

Key features

“To start off, The building of Riyang is 200 feet away from the road boundary. This “200 feet” is our “signature home coming experience”. We believe that one cannot be simply “dropped off” by the road to go home. Welcome to Riyang, where you will be welcome by a mini forest (heavily planted and comes with tree house), guard house and our green lawn drop off with one sculpture. After the 200 feet, we have an additional 70 feet deep double volume marble lobby with fish pond to further welcome you. All 270 feet to simply tell you, WELCOME HOME!” See below

“Residents used to living in Terrace House will find that our provision of 5 lifts per floor (8 units) will dramatically cut down waiting time. Hence, one can consider to “move up” from terrace house to The Riyang Condo and enjoy security and facilities.”

“The wavy and non-uniform balconies give us a unique wavy facade to our Riyang Building that is so beautiful (at least to us! ).”

“Our architect, landscape architect and interior designers, they are all reputable and have delivered award winning projects.”

8 units per floor to share 5 lifts!

Facilities

“Some customers with young children are so excited to know that we have a shaded playground. Children can play during rain, hot sun and any time of the day. Burn their energy after dinner then go up stair to sleep!  We also have a play room where parents can donate their old toys. Over time, the play room will have mountains of toys and children from our “village” will meet there for so much play time and interaction! That will certainly keep children away from the iPad and computers. For some part of my life, I grew up in a condominium. When i was 8 years old, i was part of a kids club in the condo where we visit each other to play in all the spaces around our condo. Under watchful eyes of the security guard and CCTV, children can play and roam free in a safe environment. The Riyang @ Happy Garden is designed and built for happy families!”

Sky Lounge (below)

Layout Design and Consideration

Four bedrooms – Why?

“There was a lot of contemplation in our design team when we allocated 25% of our units to have 4 bedrooms (plus another one maid room). Some of us felt that families were getting smaller and some felt it may become too large. However, the rest of us felt that the 4th bedroom comes in very handy for extra bedroom, or guest room, or home office / study, game room etc. In fact, one celebrity who bought from us will turn the 4th bedroom into a walk in closet.”

“We made sure that our condo is suitable for family living. That’s why we insisted on maid room with their own toilet (to give everyone their space and privacy). Our dry kitchen and wet kitchen combined is the same, if not larger than average size of terrace house combined kitchen and yard.”

Why window besides the WC but not shower area in master bedroom?

“The position of the windows have many factors. In this case, it was determined by the position of the bathroom door and layout of the WC and basin. The experience in the toilet should remain the same so long we have natural light and air into the bathroom. Our architect also has the opinion that some people take a long time on the WC. Some of them read. So having natural light beside the WC is good for reading. (Sorry for getting so visual ).”

“The shower screen in the shower area is not full height up to ceiling. Moisture from the shower will naturally follow air flow to the window for ventilation, so it won’t affect the bedroom. Our toilets are not excessively large so the window is not that far away from the shower.”

Other layouts please refer to www.theriyang.my

Huge Balcony and Small Bedroom Size. Why?

“For our type C 1477 sqft unit (3 bedroom plus 1 maid room), our balcony size is 120sqft which is about 8% of the total build up area. Our architect and us felt that is a reasonable proportion to our condo unit, otherwise the balcony will be very small. A very narrow balcony over the height of the building is uncomfortable.

Secondly, the balcony serves another important design rationale, which is to let our entire dining and living room area have an “uninterrupted space” via the full height sliding door. One must imagine the sliding door being replaced with wall and window, the experience of the space will be somewhat constrained and becomes different. The “uninterrupted space”, in architectural terms, allow us to “borrow the air space” outside the sliding door into the space we spend most of our time. Our customers borrow even more space when they fully open their sliding doors to enjoy the breeze.

Thirdly, we are blessed by our short neighbours (5 to 10 storey) so we have great unobstructed views all round us especially the KLCC city view for our north and east facing units. So the balcony with glass railings and our sliding doors offers us a great panorama from within our unit.

Fourthly, the deep balconies serves as sun shading to our units to provide the much needed shade from the sun. In our gallery, for your interest, we can show you hourly sun shading simulation against the sun from sunrise to sunset. At 2pm, the balcony provide near complete shading over all our windows. At 3pm, half the windows are shaded. Sun after 4pm becomes less hot for our condo. All this go a long way for us to achieve our green building certification.”

“For customers who enjoy balconies (for seating and planting), they will enjoy our larger balconies range. It is a beautiful sight to enjoy planting and green just outside your living, dining room and master bedroom (just like landed houses).”

“Lastly, the units with large balconies are priced cheaper per soft compared to units with small balconies. The price difference between the units with small and large balconies average about RM40k. It could be a reasonable good deal to double the size of your balcony.”

How about units for small balcony lovers?

“The type A (south facing) and B (north facing units), we have generally 6 types of balcony size ranging from various size (their internal layout remain the same). Half our balconies are 109sqft to 162sqft and the other half is 241 sqft to 269 sqft.”

“For customers like yourselves who prefer smaller balconies, we hope you find our smaller range of balconies (109 to 162) suitable to your requirement. It is a suitable proportion to our houses that ranged from 1604 to 1884 sqft. Do note that our smallest balcony (109sqft) will be too narrow to place 2 chairs and a coffee table. Nothing beats having a cup of coffee in the morning in full view of the city.”

Bedroom Space

“Our room size is proportionate in size for a 3 bedroom plus maid room condo unit. Please bear in mind that our wet kitchen is very functional in size for washing and cooking. We have a maid room with maid toilet (to allow privacy for everyone). Our second bedroom has ensuite bathroom for elder or female occupant.”

“In comparison to layout in other projects, they may have given a lot of space to the bedroom but made the kitchen, living and dining way too small to be functional. (Functional to us means dining room must fit round table. Comfortable space to fit 3 + 2 + 1 sofa set and perhaps shelfs or piano on one wall. Functional wet kitchen to us must fit space for double bowl basin with drainer, full size cooking hob, washing machine and place for drying.). All in all, if anything made our room size smaller, it would be the large living and dining room.”

“Our philosophy is that we have designed our condo with families and children in mind. For families with children, a lot of time is spent in the living and dining room. Less time in the bedroom. Having said that, our master bedroom can fit wardrobes, king size bed, 2 bed side table and dressing table/writing table/TV shelf. Additional empty space will be good for baby cot beside the bed. We have come across super large master bedroom in other projects whereby they fit 2 sofa chairs and coffee table, we don’t find sofa chairs and coffee table a necessary luxury in a master bedroom (they may be suitable for much larger condo units above 2500sqft).”

“In any case, in view of the precious feedbacks we have received from yourself and some customers, we have recently made adjustment to our 3+1 bedroom layout for type A. We have made that master bedroom larger and took space away from the living room. Please visit our gallery to see the revised layout to Type A.”

Aircond Ledge – Where?

“The aircond compressors are installed just outside bedroom 3. It is set in from the facade line so it is not visible from most angle (from the ground). Please ask our sales person in the gallery if you dont understand what i mean.

Where did we find space to put 5 compressors there? Here comes the technology part. We are using inverter multi split compressors. So 2 compressor can power up 5-6 aircond blowers. The multi split is more expensive for us, but we did it so that we dont have compressors in the air well.

We have not finalized our aircond brand selection yet. However, our current approved brands are Daikin, Panasonic, Acson and Mitsubishi.”

How about the Feng Shui?

“Technically according to Feng Shui, Feng Shui is very personal and it dependent on every individual. Feng shui has a lot of do with the location, direction and flow of the mountain and the chi. We have seen feng shui master making claim that certain location has better feng shui than others.

To us, feng shui has a lot of do with being sensible too. Essentially, the space must be bright and well ventilated. A good example is our lift lobby with sun light from both east and west sun, and cross ventilation from both direction. Our condo units have big windows, tall ceiling, squarish space and sensible layout. Our grand entrance with fish pond, mini forest and lawn sets the tone of calmness to welcome you home everyday.

Our older neighbouring buildings are all shorter than us, so we have great vista and views from almost all our units. That wavy facade on our building must be great too in receiving and revolving the unobstructed chi energy and wind around our building and into our condo units.”

Refuse Room Design

Note: Refer the floor plan above.

“We have 2 layers of door. To enter the refuse room from the condo unit, you pass the first door to enter the service lobby and then the second door to enter the refuse room. In any case, the refuse room has exhaust air by suction to remove foul smell. It will be have bins for general waste and recycled waste.

Maintenance worker will pull the bin from the refuse room to the service lift in the service lobby. The residents on their normal day to day coming home will not see the worker in the service lobby. Maintenance worker will also lock the lift for their exclusive use and clean up when they are done. Therefore, residents will never see the rubbish bin in the lift.”

Detail and Practicality

“With customer feedback, we modified our cold water routing through the yard and made provision for easy installation of a water filter there to make our condo much more liveable and functional for a long time to come.”

“We have put in so much thoughts into our designs. We have imagined ourselves as a child running around the condo so that we can highlight any spots that may be dangerous for a child. We have imagined ourselves as the maintenance man trying to repair the ceiling of the double volume ceiling in our podium, for that we have put in place concrete slab for working platform. We have imagined ourselves as the rubbish man pulling the wheel bin down the service lift down to LG2 and crossing the driveway to our rubbish compactor, for that we re-orientated the service door and ramp to keep the path as short as possible.”

“All this small details go a long way in keeping maintenance cost down so that residents can put the service charge collected to better use, like residents party in our sky lounge and activities for our children and elderly resident.”

“We have been careful to place our air conditioner compressors facing outwards (yet nicely tucked in and partially hidden). That way, we have no air conditioner compressors in our air well that will send hot air to our kitchens and let other compressor recycle hot air and fail in cooling. A small detail that most other condos did not address.”

“Our swimming pool is raised by 450mm as a child safety measure, so that young toddler do not simply fall in. Our raised deck and our elevated gym is accessible for wheel chair ramps.”

“The carpark design comes with

4m wide carpark ramp instead of conventional 3m.

One straight ramp from floor to floor instead of half ramps for every half floor of carpark.

Short circular loop instead of long end-to-end loop.

Natural light and air for comfort to our carpark.

High ceiling with minimum and tidy beam layout.

Extra wide carparks for those obstructed by large columns beside.

Zone lighting to save electricity

5 lifts for short waiting time

Rain water tap for occasional carpark cleaning

Vent block facade for minimum maintenance

OKU carpark near the lift lobby

Ramps to lift lobby for disabled and baby stroller, carefully tucked in fire escape door for pedestrian safety, pedestrian walking lane.

Thoughtful placement of M&E trunking to avoid driveway

Common toilet beside refuse compactor chamber for maintenance workers

Three Phase electricity is a necessity for air conditioners equipped building. This is to future proof the house so that our residents can enjoy The Riyang condo for much longer. Just like how we provide CAT 6 data point to our TV point, to future proof the future 4k TVs. And our double feed Astro for PVR recording. All these feature are very hard to upgrade by the resident themselves because it depends on the main trunking and infra provided by the developer.”

Pricing

The price ranges from RM550/sqft. Too complex to illustrate here. Sub 500psf also available if one do not mind the view and low floor. Check out with the developer. Too many variable to explain here.

Other Concerns

The Riyang is linked together with RUMAWIP Selesa Apartment – Land and Title Concern?

“Both Riyang Condominium and Selesa Apartment will form separate sub-management corporation on the same master title (as provided for in the strata title act). Sub-MC for different phases of development is becoming more common for mixed development consisting of shopping malls, hotel, office with residence. In this case, both Riyang and Selesa are residential development, which should have much less problems.”

Is the entrance of The Riyang located at the existing night market?

“Yes, the entrance is where the monday night pasar malam is. DBKL has informed us that they are in the process of shifting them to another site. The current site is causing too much congestion.”

As the land is shared between The Riyang and Selesa, any issue if the enbloc sales (like Kudalari Condo in KLCC) happen in future? Would be it disadvantage to The Riyang. Question raised by a concerned forummer.

“One must understand the principal behind unit share calculation and weightage of unit share depending on property type (in accordance to the latest Strata Title Act). Under the first schedule of the act, all residential and office are given the weightage for 1 time for the share unit.

The weightage makes no regards to the following:

 1. Whether a particular unit has been renovated or improved.

 2. Whether the said unit is on high floors with great view OR low floors with no views.

 3. Value of the property when purchased or current value (for different phase of the development)

In my opinion, the formula itself is not perfect for all situation. For example, weightage formula for retail is straightforward 2.0 times against 1.0 times for residential. The mall owners must be quite sore too considering that mall value is so much higher than residential value.

To answer your question based on the book, technically the owners of Riyang Condo and owners of Selesa Apartments (rumawip) will be compensated on the same value per unit share. (Unit share is determined based on the area of unit parcel and accessory parcel). Considering that Riyang owners pay more per sqft of their property, the compensation formula is certainly unfair.

However, not all is lost. For an en-bloc sale to take effect under the current law, 100% of the owners must agree to the sale. Surely, the owners of Riyang will not agree to the same compensation per unit share as the selesa apartment owners. Therefore, value of the Riyang condo and Selesa apartment must be adjusted accordingly to reflect market value in order for the en bloc sale to go through.”

Would the land sub-divide between The Riyang and Selesa?

“No, the land will not be subdivided. It will be formed as 2 separate sub-MC sharing on the same land. But, both given separate access, carpark, facilities and sub-MC.”

Share entrance of Selesa Apartment?

“The Entrance to Selesa Apartment from Jalan Riang (there is a public road between the 5 storey Happy Garden Apartment). Selesa apartment has their own entrance with their own guardhouse, own carpark, separate facilities. Yes, selesa apartment is closer to Jalan selesa (next to Sri Desa condominium).”

Car park bays for Selesa residents are allocated at the ground floor carpark podium which cannot access to other floors.

Old Apartments as
neighbours

“There are advantages though with the old apartment beside us. Firstly, there will be no new construction beside us. Secondly, they are 5 and 8 storey tall so nothing new will be blocking our view. Sometimes, better to see the existing apartment than to be surprised by a new 30 storey tower right beside you.”

Environment Improvement

“1. Other than the Pasar malam to be moved away to other location,  we are moving away the carwash next to Gembira Park block C. We will be hacking away the illegal concrete slab. Then we will put in place guard rail barriers and landscape the road reserve with trees and grass. We will repair the drains too.

2. We have proposed to Gembira Park Block C chairman to let us repair his damaged fence facing jalan gembira. We even offered to remove one fallen tree in his playground.

3. We are gathering objection letter from our resident and condos to request DBKL to evict illegal car workshops (the space is designated as green belt which beside Gembira Park Block C). Once evicted, we will offer to DBKL to landscape the designated green area.

4. We will be widening the road bend around Jalan Gembira (next to the used car) to improve traffic. 5. We have removed a lot of loan stickers around our neighbourhood and still removing them when they come back.

5. We have cleaned up some fallen tree beside the 5 storey Happy Garden Apartment.

6.  For our last move, we will propose to DBKL for approval to let us construct a bus stop (in front of our entrance) for all to use .”

Competitor

There are many questions on the comparison with nearby competitor – Le Yuen. Hope the information extracted below help.

1.Price – Le Yuan pricing around RM480-500psf.
“We also have units at RM500psf at the lowest floor. With the package and freebies discounted, they are around RM480psft too.”

2. Old – Le Yuen; New – The Riyang

3. “Many owners of Le Yuen bought for investment and probably did not consider some critical points for own stay.”

4. “For most of the units, bedroom 2 and bedroom 3 window faced inwards into an partially enclosed air well that has poor light. To make things worse, the window would look directly into the next door neighbour’s window. It is tragic to live in a high rise and not be able to enjoy the view and having to keep the curtain drawn all the time.”

5. “Le Yuen yard is too small, odd shape and difficult to fit functional space for wet kitchen cabinet. Given our asian culture of wet (messy) and dry (impressive) kitchen, that is a big turn off for families.”

6. “Le Yuen has a very nice beach pool. Ok, it is difficult for us to beat that :))”

7. “Le Yuen has 670 units to share all the space. That is a large project compared to 212 units in Riyang.”

8. “For units that face east to the highway, they are quite close to the highway. And the jungle right on the east side is future development land so a new 20 storey building can pop up right in front of the living rooms of the units.”

9. “Le yuen is ready to move in (we can’t beat that  ) our piling is completed and construction has started.”

10. “Some units in Le Yuen have no maid room. That is an important requirement for families with young children.”

11. “Roof top is exclusive to pent-house owners. (Riyang roof top open for all 😛 )”

12. “Our sky lounge (with ID renovation) is a big plus point for families to invite their friends and family over for private gathering with a roof top view. Le yuen’s multipurpose room is bare. Seringin score high on this point with a very nice ID renovation, on the first floor.”

13. “The Riyang playground space is much larger than Le Yuen!”

14. “We pay a lot of attention to design the Riyang for families with children and elderly residents.”

“The Riyang and Le Yuen has their pros and cons, and all subjective depending on your requirement and priorities.”

To be honest, PROPCAFE sees Gembira Residence is the closest competitor, not Le Yuen. Unfortunately, we could not manage to visit Gembira Residence to make a case to spar with The Riyang. 🙂 Maybe make it next time!

Conclusion from PROPCAFE

PROPCAFE loves the detail planning & design works from the developers. Matured area is always the preferred choice in term of the selection of property location. This project is clearly target for own-stayers and also people who like convenient and to be near to city. There are not many units for sales and PROPCAFE believe eventually all 212 units will be sold to the proud families. One can expect the pricing in future to be more stable compare to the rest of the investment bound properties. When there is less for sales in the market means higher chance to fetch better price. However, due to the relatively higher absolute price, it needs a push in economy/income growth to support the next pricing level, so it could take time. Since inflationary will not go away in anytime soon, it is safe for own-stay and long term holding. To be honest, life is short and if we throw away all the speculative factors, buying new home is all about to improve the family living lifestyle, which is precious. Follow your heart, buying for own-stay is not complicated at all!

Have a great week ahead!

The Riyang website: www.theriyang.my

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Related


PROPCAFE™ Guide : PROPCAFE™ Property Insights Sharing With KCLau

PROPCAFE™
has been kinda of quiet lately… not because of the property market 🙂 because we are brewing something behind the scene! For no reason, suddenly feel like making a weekday “shout out” here!

From the day PropCafe.Net was founded until today, we had reached more than 1,800,000 page views, with an average more than 1300 page views per days and you know what? Till today PropCafe spent ZERO cents on SEO!

Who is PropCafe.Net? What are we made of? We are really crazy and kid you not, we are really property freaks! We believe in our dream and our vision. Unlike others property search portals in the market, we are different. PropCafe is the “missing link” that what the mass market wants, PropCafe is the filler to the void that has been left empty for so long between property search portal and mass market users; be it investors, developers, real estate agency or most important for those who are looking to rent their temporary “Shelter” or to buy their “Home”.

You can call us crazy, you can hate us or you can love us, some even think we are foe and some take us as their friend, regardless what you call us, we will continue our dream. There was always something missing.. even though PropCafe could never fully put our finger on it. Now PropCafe know exactly what was missing.

Want to know more about PropCafe? What we do, how we do and where are we heading to? Want to know our honest property insights? Read our interview session with
KCLau.com

At the same time, PropCafe likes to say thank you to brother
 KC
 for his time and patience 🙂 and PropCafe will definitely looking forward to do it again 😉

Do Not Miss This Honest Property Insights With PropCafe

We interviewed some of the members of
PropCafe
 – Malaysia Real Estate Property Talk & Review – From Love Hate Passion to Buy Sell Rent about their passion and what PropCafe has got to offer. Read on and find out their most interesting insights in property scene.

1. Can you briefly introduce about PropCafe and what you guys are set to achieve with the site?

Propcafe:
 Founded in 2012 and Comprises of 7 of us, PropCafe founders were brought together by a common interest – “Passion and Love of Properties”. With the average age of around 38 years old, most of PropCafe founders involved in
property investment
 since 2006 and never stop
buying, renting out, or selling properties.Coming from diverse backgrounds, from professional accountant, engineer, banker to retired and matured PhD candidate, the knowledge and analytical view point from us always makes the property investment discussion a very entertaining session.
PropCafe members accumulated portfolio slightly more than RM100 millions from over 100 properties and currently holding 85 properties which worth estimated RM80 millions
. The investment portfolio covers Alam Impian, Ampang, Ara Damansara, Bandar Kinrara, Bangsar South, Bukit Jalil, Bukit Ceylon, Cheras, Cyberjaya, Damansara Perdana, Desa Pandan, Desa Parkcity, Eco Park, Kajang, Singapore, KLCC, KL City Centre(-Kampung Baru, Jalan Ipoh), Melawati, Penang, Petaling Jaya, Puchong, Rawang, Sentul, Setia Alam, Sierramas, Singapore, SS2, Sungai Besi, Sungai Long, Sunway Damansara, Tropicana, and TTDI.Out Tagline –
 “ From Love, Hate, Passion to Buy, Sell, Rent – Home is my Family”
. In long run, PropCafe.net aim to be one of the top property blogger in Malaysia.

Stay true to be anonymous, we are using coffee nicks in this roundtable.

2. We believe most of the people will think that the property in Klang Valley is very high at this moment and is it still worthy to invest in new development property? What are your views about the situation now?

Black Coffee:
 Developers have done their market research and their products targeted to specific market whether mass, upmarket or niche market. It is important to know what your needs and wants and focus on your priorities. As people say, there is no such thing as perfect property and if everything is perfect, normally the price wouldn’t be perfect. For developers that didn’t carry sufficient market study and overestimate the attractiveness of their products, the market will punish them accordingly.

Café Latte :
 From
PropCafe’s Editors’ outlook and summary of the property market
, property purchase for the purpose of own use, anytime is a good time to buy a property of your choice, if it is a love at first sight, the property fits your budget and wallet friendly, by all means go ahead with it. For investment, whole other sets of criterias come into play, to know more do follow and subscribe to PropCafe posts.

Caffe Corretto:
 More and more affordable properties emerged into market with the size of 1000sf+ and price tag of rm450 to 550psf. Many do not come with restriction on qualification or holding period unlike Pr1ma and Selangorku etc. It is good for late
investors
 who can tap on this market to grow its portfolio. Many claimed that this type product always come with high density but it will be norm in future if you bring forward 5 year time. All developed countries all have gone through this phase.

These properties will work particularly well if near to public transport be it MRT/LRT/KTM/BRT. Market has enough studio or pigeon hole size properties to be absorbed in next 5 years and the psf wise has risen to a very high level, unless the location is superb and very near to KL City Centre, this is the product to avoid to invest in near future (to me).

 For mid and up market, now is the best time for those have longer horizon investment plan i.e. Ownstay for couple of years but slightly skew with investment mind.

A lot of people mentioned also many guru said that you should not use ownstay as a reason to invest. I disagree, with limited resources or credit limit available, for those conservative investors, to trade up or keep current property to let and move to mid or upper market for longer period to realise the profit is not a bad idea since prices are relatively high now. Then why is it good when price is still high at the moment?

You can see the developer in up market segment is either slashing the pricing or launch new properties within the same township with no hike of price from previous launches in last two to three years (search harder and it is not difficult to find in with forum provides a lot new launches update nowadays.

In fact, some even lower with some tweak on its product or slight compromise on it materials. In short, developer will change their strategy in different economic condition, we as an investors need to assess to see what is fit into your strategy too. Don’t stop investing but of course, do it within your mean.

Soy Cappuccino :
 This question in fact is nothing new and one of the most popular questions had been asked long time ago . It is one of the most conundrum for the expert and I believe this question will be repeatedly asked again and again be it yesterday, today or tomorrow or ten years later ? .

I see 2015 real estate market where more likely buyers would likely adopt a wait-and-see strategy for six to nine months after the implementation of the GST. For all these indicators, I am expecting to see the change in most developers in Malaysia in their marketing and pricing strategy to adopt to the market comfortable digestion level to

introduce product price range of 400k-600k with smaller unit size to the market.

It will interesting also that I am anticipating the change of property market trend in term of market requirements and paradigm shift of definition of home, where the emerging of new market is getting clearer – The Gen Y&Z lifestyle product:

1. Emphasing more on Lifestyle living with premium elegant address

 2. Integrated mixed development will be getting more acceptable

 3. The rise of SoHo, SoVo, SoFo , SoXo …

 4. New developments of township at outer Klang Valley to keep the price at affordable range (The expansion of Klang Valley’s perimeter).

All In all, I would say 2015 property market is the key year to dictate the market on 2016!

Flat white:
 The bull run is truly over now and as investors, we do need to be extra careful with our strategies. We saw prices of similar products either stagnant, marginally more expensive or developers are changing their strategy by offering more inferior and higher density products in order to keep the price ‘attractive’.

We do continue to purchase but limited to good products on proven and strategic locations, generally the rule of thumbs is not outside of 30kms from the centre of gravity (i.e. KLCC if we have to stress it again). We believe that locationX3 still hold water when compared to far away places like beyond Kajang or beyond Rawang or Klang.

Of course any properties launched within the easy walking distance to the new LRT/MRT always draw our attention. The key words are within walking distance, not walkable distance.

Kopi O Peng:
 While most investors are focusing on new launches, only handful of the investors looking at value buys in the secondary market (be it from sub sales or auction sales), that is due to the fact that developers give incentives/ rebates/ low down payment scheme / GRR for certain projects, to the extent one look stupid if to deny such deals.

Notwithstanding the above, I favor secondary market more than primary market. To me, a million ringgit 2 storey link house in Bandar Utama is always a better and safer bet than 2 units of brand new 500k similar products in a new and untested area like in Semenyih, or Sepang.

Affogato:
 Yes, I think the price is high – I believe the market will have to digest all the incoming – and come to an equilibrium in terms of liquidity as well as demand/supply. We are also seeing more and more lower priced launches, at the expense of space; all small sized units. Nevertheless, there are pockets of launches here/there which are investable; and have potential to bring good returns. Investors are urged to crunch the numbers, and do proper due diligence – instead of letting the Sales Assistant do it for them.

3. Do you have a systematic method to hunt for property that gives high rental yield? Please provide examples.

Black Coffee:
 Whether you are looking for own use or investment, the first thing you should prioritize your needs and wants. Whether location, size, budget, rental, capital gain. From there you can start to hunt your property.

Café Latte:
 Start your research ASAP, start with a target.

 Do a lot of research in a specific area, list down spends hours to narrow alternatives around the target ,ask of questions, study rental liquidity. We can go on and on, if you find the above interesting, I am sure you will know what do to next.

Caffe Corretto:
 Previously PropCafe members assess property, be it rental, new and old properties, with their own strategies and criteria. However, the power of 7 brains has helped us to form a systematic property assessment methodology. Currently this methodology with 7 categories and 50 factors are undergoing the modelling and calibration process.

With big data analytics in mind and using similar financial industry modelling and validation methodology that used by all international and local players, PropCafe hopes to introduce the systematic property assessment tool and property recommendation model to the property own-stayers and investors soon. Stay tuned.

Soy Cappuccino:
 Systematic? No. Not any high tech or rocket science. Just if you can get the product at 20% below market valuation and with return of 5% yield is good enough. If you want more then need to work harder for it. Typically will look at location, price, accessibility and product itself.

Flat White:
 Proven rental returns over 5% can only be achieved via subsale property with proven rental history. This can be achieved via putting many hours in analysing distress sale and the successful bidding of such sale.

 Kopi O Peng
: My investment benchmark is only buy if the property is 30% below market price, and at least with the potential of 6% rental yield. Your next question could be: where to find these kinds of deals?

Work with good agents, incentivise the agents who can get you a 30% below market bargain, even they have been already paid by the seller.
Google
 for the 20 most wanted properties in KLV online, and invest in these developments or areas. From the list, pick and focus on the area that you know best and build portfolios on that particular area. Turn around time is vital, make sure you start collecting rental income 3 months after your purchases.

Affogato:
 No specific example in my case, as these cases are all unique and there is no common methodology for all different types.

4. Since you have published analysis on certain projects, where are the location or area that you think might fetch future appreciation as well as rental returns? Please explain the reasons.

Black Coffee:
Every location and project is buyable as long as the buyers feel the project meet their requirement and expectation. Some prefer to buy in mature township or suburb or in city centre or upcoming area. There is no right or wrong location. Otherwise some location will turn out to be ghost town.

Café Latte:
 Not specific areas honestly. There must be some USPs in order to have good future appreciation, if everything is status quo, price will likely to be status quo, aka stagnant.

We value a lot on potential new infrastructures, especially MRT, shopping mall integrated to transportation hub such as MRT. Development that possesses these features will be the next hot spots.

Developments where resident have the options chose his/her transportation mode, commuting town center work place with ease. Shop with ease just a stroll down the block for groceries errand for the day, a blockbuster movie next 5 minutes from your home, banking amenities at your door step! These are the convenience we believe most people will be looking forward to, living in a residence integrated with bundle of entertainment, transport , recreation amenities is a lifestyle.

Caffe Corretto:
 It is a difficult question as everyone has their own preference to buy ownstay house means property investors need to guess where is the subsales buyers want to stay! Investors normally go for safe bet with matured areas. However, with this criteria, normally the price won’t come cheap. So next is to expand the area slightly outbound to search relatively lower priced property.

Example, with Puchong prices flied over last few years, investors or ownstayers already started to focus more in the area like Puchong South. Same applies to Semenyih last two years when Kajang landed prices also moved up substantially. Where is the best location next? I would say, if you are not savvy enough to predict where is the demand on subsale market in next few years, then go for the location that you familiar and use the expansion concept to move outbound to see any value buy if nothing is affordable in the prime area of favored location.

Soy Cappucinno:
 No specific location. I always believe every location is unique and there always a good buy within the area vice versa there will be bad apples too. The questions is how to identify the bad apples from the basket of apples! It is just that you need to study more in depth which type product is highly in demand now or in the future for that specific area.

Flat White:
 High traffic, public transportation able and high concentration of human habitant especially the younger generation. We believe most of these places fall within the original klang valley locales such as petaling jaya, subang, puchong, cheras and kl city areas. Klang, Shah Alam and Kajang are the off shot.

Kopi O Peng:
 All matured areas with organic population growth. These areas are self-contained and less dependence on the imigrants from outstations or abroad. Locals tends to prefer to stay close to their parents, parents in law, siblings, friends, or closed to their work place. Matured areas are always the safer bets.

Affogato:
 Developments that area close to LRT ; but not right next to it. Liquid for own stay – easy to travel. And liquid for rental market. Proven in current environment. Need to be careful as well, as developers have also priced in this selling point. Location matters, am not convinced with Semenyih, Dengkil nor Rimbayu – I believe the rental yield will be poor; and price appreciation very slow.

5. What differs propCafe.Net to other property sites (in Malaysia)?

Propcafe:
 We are a bunch of property investors, who are from different background with different risk appetites; and we are not aligned to any developers.

Due to our different background with different risk appetites and we are not aligned to any developers, our review are unique, unbiased and presents our distinct opinion about a real estate development. Our research is in depth and we strongly believe in
“the more you share the more you will get back”
, we go the distance to give the readers great insight without recycle ‘promotion’ type of reviews provided by developers.

We care we share. Our review are unique, and presents our distinct opinion about a real estate development. Our research is in depth, we go the distance to give the readers great insight. We hope our readers like what we have presented so far, and continue to give support to visit us. PropCafe strive to be largest database of independent
property
 review database in Malaysia .

We are not like just any property portals where most of it just provides a very limited basic info of a project or desktop review kind of information and we don’t really know where those editor/writer background originated from? Blogging nowadays is rather norm for eg food blogging, car blogging,
holiday
 blogging and the list goes on and you can find quite a number of these kind of bloggers but Blogging of property is rather rare and new in Malaysia property industry as it’s lacking of “willing to share” community especially property investors because most of them either too busy to devote their time to do like what we are doing (most of the investor will be too busy investing!) or they had become gurus and those knowledge sharing session only can be attained by attending to their talk but not everyone have the flexibility on that.

So PropCafe was thinking to share our analysis and review over the internet for anyone who knows how to use internet to have the access on it. Hopefully one day we will have the largest database of property review database in Malaysia, where anyone can be easily accessed without attending any talk or launching and etc to find out more details. Imagine PropCafe is just like a virtual property project advisor where we using our expertise and experience of property investment to analysis a project from investor or own-stay POV!

To be honest, we spend quite an amount of time to share our thought and analysis here with the public so that the public are well aware of what are they buying into. Our aims are to share our “independent” analysis based on our experience and knowledge without being “compromised” in the hope where the next generation are more knowledgeable when coming into buying their first property.

Nonetheless we still believe the best way to change the society to be wiser when come to property is the through E-Education and there is why we are here and what we are doing now. We hope that we will be an inspiration and an example to the next generation like Gen-Y & Z to continue the spirit and passion of PropCafe, to continue sharing the knowledge with the community for a better knowledgeable and healthier property industry in Malaysia.

We don’t just recycle ‘promotion’ type of reviews provided by developers
. We usually review our projects from the angle of purchasers and investors perspective. We provide analytical reviews of both the good and bad points of a project.

In future, we may venture into tools that enable prospective investors and buyers to source for their properties using the pre-determined parameters and give scores or indicators of their searches.

PropCafe never stingy to praise a property if we see the value in it
. Similarly, we never shy to pinpoint the flaws of the properties. We always believe in sharing but not recommending as you yourself know what you want. Most of time, what you need is some guide and analytical information that we may miss out when you visit sales office. PropCafe is the one which fill this gap. Simple, if you read someone review and all information you can get it from sales office or developer website, then what you read is not property review, that is information provider.

PropCafe certainly is not in this category. Well, PropCafe still just an independent property review as of now, but it is going to change in the end of 2015 or early 2016 when our big plan (abovementioned) becomes materialise.

Going forward the blog will evolve and in future, we are venture into systematic property assessment tools that will assist prospective investors and buyers to make decision. We will not make revolution to the property market but the change will certainly make the ownstayers and investors love us!

Stay tuned!

Read More
http://kclau.com/blogging/propcafe/
 – See more at: http://kclau.com/blogging/propcafe

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PROPCAFE Property News : IOI Properties and Sunway Property Records Higher Profit

IOI Properties and Sunway Property records higher profit and revenue for the current quarter ended 30 September 2016 despite the property market gloom in 2016. PROPCAFE received official media release from both major developers Sunway Property and IOI Properties as per below.

IOI Properties Q1 FY17 Records Higher Revenue and Profit

25th Nov 2016
 – IOI Properties Group Berhad (“IOIPG”) announced its Q1 financial results for the financial period ended 30 September 2016. The Group continues to deliver better performance amidst the current soft property market due to weak consumer sentiment and tight lending conditions.

IOIPG recorded revenue and profit before taxation of RM899.5 million and RM289.5 million respectively for the current quarter, which is RM304.3 million or 51%; and RM81.2 million or 39% respectively higher than the preceding year corresponding quarter. The Group’s operating profit of RM270.4 million for the current quarter is RM58.4 million or 28% higher than the preceding year corresponding quarter. The increase in both revenue

and operating profit are mainly attributed to the Group’s better performance in its three main

business segments, namely property development, property investment as well as leisure and

hospitality.

On this encouraging Q1 financial standings, the Group is optimistic that the local property market is expected to consolidate despite the challenging global economic environment with the demand for properties in the medium price range category to remain resilient.

The Group’s property development segment contributed revenue and operating profit of RM793.6 million and RM223.5 million respectively in the current quarter, an increase of RM291.4 million or 58% and RM46.0 million or 26% respectively compared to the preceding year corresponding quarter. The increase in both revenue and operating profit is mainly contributed from higher sales take-up rates for overseas projects in both Singapore and

Xiamen, PRC as well as projects in IOI Resort City Putrajaya and Warisan Puteri @ Sepang.

Its property investment segment also recorded better revenue and operating profit of RM71.3 million and RM42.5 million respectively, an increase of 17% and 43% respectively compared to the preceding year corresponding quarter. This is mainly attributed to IOI City Mall’s increased average occupancy rates from 88% to 94% and upward rate revision upon tenancy renewal. Apart from this, the ideal locations of the Group’s property investments

portfolios; within matured townships and high growth corridors have also contributed to

healthy occupancy rates and rental yields.

Meanwhile, the Group’s leisure and hospitality segment recorded a RM2.1 million or 7% increase in revenue, to RM32.5 million in the current quarter as compared to preceding year corresponding quarter. The increase in revenue is mainly attributed to Four Points by Sheraton, Puchong and Le Meridien Putrajaya, with the latter commencing its business operations in August 2016.

Its Chief Executive Officer Lee Yeow Seng commented that, “The Group will continue to focus on improving its group synergies to remain resilient and competitive.” On 22 August 2016, the Board has declared an interim single tier dividend of 8.0 cents per ordinary share, amounting to RM352,897,216 in respect of the financial year ended 30 June 2016.

SUNWAY BERHAD RECORDS HIGHER PROFITS IN PROPERTY AND CONSTRUCTION SEGMENTS

Bandar Sunway, 25

November 2016
– Sunway Berhad, one of Malaysia’s largest conglomerates with core interests in real estate and construction, today reported a 19.6% increase in revenue to RM1,137.5 million and a higher net profit of RM143.6 million for the current quarter ended 30 September 2016 compared to revenue of RM951.0 million and net profit of RM133.3 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.

“Given the improved third quarter results, we expect the Group’s performance to remain satisfactory for the remainder of the year as our last quarter performance tends to be our strongest seasonally. While we will proceed with caution in our business strategy due to the current unpredictability of the global economy, we are confident to meet the challenges ahead as we have the advantage of a diversified business portfolio,” said Chong Chang Choong, CFO of Sunway Berhad.

Sunway Berhad continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and low-gearing of 0.38 times.

STRONGER PERFORMANCE OVERALL

The property development segment reported a commendable 61.6% increase in profit before tax to RM62.2 million in the current quarter from RM 38.5 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year despite lower revenue at RM 247.6 million compared to RM 270.9 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.

The higher profit before tax was contributed mainly by higher progress billings from local projects and other property projects in Singapore. Lower revenue was due to lower contributions from the Group’s wholly-owned Avant Parc project in Singapore which commenced revenue recognition in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year, and was fully sold in the second quarter of this year.

Property sales year to date stands at RM 864 million compared to property sales year-to-date of RM 734 million in the previous year. Unbilled property sales remains healthy at RM1.8 billion, providing good earnings visibility for the property division.

The property investment segment also reported higher profit before tax of RM45.9 million compared to RM37.3 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. Third quarter revenue is also higher at RM189.9 million compared to revenue of RM172.2 million in the previous year. The better performance is due to better occupancy from Sunway’s portfolio of investment properties and an increase in the number of visitors to Sunway Lagoon and Lost World of Tambun following the opening of several new attractions, which include the Nickelodeon Lost Lagoon opened in February 2016.

The construction segment recorded revenue of RM287.9 million and profit before tax of RM32.2 million in the current quarter compared to revenue of RM196.8 million and profit before tax of RM24.1 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. Revenue in the current quarter was higher due to lower intra-group eliminations. Current profit before tax was also higher due to higher progress billings from local construction projects.

The construction order book remains healthy at RM 4.8 billion with a year-to-date order book replenishment of RM 2.6 billion.

END

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PROPCAFE™ Property News : Sunway Acquires Prime Landbank Opposite Sunway Velocity

Sunway City, 10 February 2017 – Sunway City Sdn Bhd (SunCity), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sunway, today announced that it has entered into a joint venture agreement to develop
an 8.45 acre parcel
 of leasehold land opposite its iconic Sunway Velocity development in
Jalan Peel
, Cheras.

SunCity will pay RM500,001 for a 50% + 1 share stake in
Austral Meridian Property Sdn Bhd (AMP)
, the joint venture company. In addition, SunCity will also advance up to RM140,000,000 to settle the existing liabilities of AMP.

The proposed development on the newly acquired land is expected to comprise service apartments, retail shops and offices. With an estimated
Gross Development Value of RM2.0 billion
, the development will be implemented over a period of 10 years. It is expected to be synergistic with Sunway Velocity that is located directly opposite the land.

Sunway Velocity Mall Chinese New Year Decoration

A RM4.0 billion development by Sunway, Sunway Velocity has performed strongly for the Group since the first launch in 2008, with more than RM1.0 billion worth of residences and offices sold thus far. The recently opened Sunway Velocity Shopping Mall has become a new landmark in the Cheras area and achieved footfall of more than a million people in less than 2 months.

Located just 5km from the Kuala Lumpur City Center, the development enjoys easy connectivity via a short walking distance to the Cochrane MRT Station and underground Maluri MRT Station & LRT Interchange. The massive population of over 800,000 in the Cheras vicinity also contributed to the appeal of the development.

With this proposed new development, the Group envisages Sunway Velocity to benefit from a larger catchment population and vice versa, residents and tenants of the new development will benefit from the amenities and conveniences at Sunway Velocity. In the near future, Sunway Velocity is expected to be further enhanced by the completion of a 4-star hotel, a medical center and 2 corporate office towers, all of which are already under construction.

Sunway has already
planned for linkways to connect both development
 to make it easy for residents, tenants and businesses to seamlessly commute between both sides. More information on the new development by AMP will be announced by Sunway in due course.

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