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Penang Real Estate | Penang Property | Penang Properties: The Light Linear Condo Urgently Wanted

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Demographics influence properties

WHERE one works may not say a lot about us, but where one hangs out will. Which takes us to the next level. Does demographics have an influence over how office buildings are planned and designed?

Property consultant YY Lau, the principal of YY Property Solutions, says the Klang Valley's changing office environment says a lot about our lifestyle and how we like to spend our time.

Let's take public transport versus private cars. Because of the poor public transportation system, most of us drive to work. So the availability of office parking is an issue.

Consider KL Sentral. That is supposed to be a transportation hub, but how often do people going there opt for public transport? Chances are, one will take the car.

So when a company chooses a location, several factors come under consideration.

“Branding, perception, budget and talent retention are important issues they have to consider,” she says.

After years of helping her clients to find their dream office space, she has learned a few things about demographics and what people want.

“The Gen-Y (those born in the 1980s and 1990s) group likes to go into prestigious offices. The older workers, the baby-boomers (1946-1955) and Gen-X (1965 and 1980) consider day-to-day issues like ease of parking, picking up the children, the cost of food around their office, the cost of commuting and the time taken.”

Lau says it is common for a job offer to be rejected or accepted based on what's around and available in the office premises, or what the office looks like.

Gen-Y's preferences for prestigious glass and steel buildings may also be an indication of where they like to hang out during and after office hours. Today, the imported coffee culture Starbucks and Coffee Bean is within the office premises, having found their way from the shopping malls to the work place.

Lau says the shortage of car parking facilities is another long-standing issue across the demographics.

A lot of young people drive. Lau says every 500 sq ft of office space is provided with one car parking bay. Sometimes, it could have one car parking bay for every 1,000 sq ft. Three to five people can occupy a 500 sq ft office. “So if your office is located near a mall, that helps,” she says.

Depending on the sector, a company may not need as much space as before. With the convenience of technology, a lot of Gen-X and Gen-Y carry that technology around today.

“If you have 20 staff members, you need 20 seats. But for consultancy work, a number of the staff may not be in the office during any part of the working day. But there is this Asian mentality they like to have ownership of a place. But we have seen how people in other countries work everybody has a trolley. And you log in.

“Some work from home. From the company's point of view, they will save in terms of phone calls and the staff will be happier but it cannot be a habit.

“The issue about not going into the office is, after a while, you lose touch and no longer feel connected. These are the issues that need to be worked out between employers and employees,” she says.

Quite a number of office blocks today also come with gym and sports facilities. Some have a pool. These are amenities enjoyed by the working community in that area and help to reduce road congestion as they do not need to drive to the gym.

Lau says the provision of a child care centre has been talked about for a while. Today, there are a few offices which provide this facility.

“The year 2012 was a dragon year which naturally saw a baby boom. Working mothers are having a hard time getting help to look after their babies. Hence, the trend today among building owners is to have a child-care centre within their premises which they outsourced to an operator,” says Lau, adding that from her conversation with employers, their preferences and need for a work-home balance have result in them giving up a lucrative job offer.

MGPA (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd general manager Patrick Liau says people want conveniences irrespective of demographics. Liau manages The Intermark, a mixed integrated development located at the intersection between Jalan Ampang and Jalan Tun Razak in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

The development is anchored by a hotel, a mall and two office blocks offering more than 1.3mil sq ft of office space. There are six retail floors of about 200,000 sq ft with a carefully selected mix of tenant to provide conveniences and services to the working and visiting community.

Jaya Groccer will provide added conveniences and the lower concourse and concourse floors provide the services. The space and how it is used, says Lau, has been carefully planned and thought out.

It's a story about transformation, not only of this place, but how an integrated development, with the office component, should work, he says.

Liau says the office floor space can be as large as 23,500 sq ft, and without columns, big enough to accommodate more than 200 people on one floor.

Studies done have shown that productivity increases when the different departments that need to work each other are located on one floor, he says. Time may be lost taking the stairs or in lifts.

Within the building, excluding external factors like location, Liau says tenants today look for three things air conditioners that work, clean toilets and well-maintained escalators and lifts.

He says the lifts at The Intermark travel at 7 metres per second, one of the fastest in Kuala Lumpur.

“You need this, when you are travelling 62 storeys,” he says. - The Star

How to choose a home loan

TO the common folk, choosing a home loan is almost as hard as choosing the property itself. If you’re currently in the midst of shopping for a home loan to buy your dream house, here are six things you should consider before making what could arguably be the biggest financial decision of your life.

1) Type of home loan

First and foremost, consider what works best for you: a traditional term loan or a flexible home loan (flexi-loan). A traditional term loan requires you to pay a fixed amount each month for the entire tenure of your home loan (eg. 30 years), while a flexi-loan gives you the option of reducing your interest whenever you wish (i.e. by saving your extra money into a linked current account. The more you save, the less interest you pay).

If you have a strict and predictable cash-flow pattern, a traditional term loan may be best. If you prefer flexibility in paying off your loan, a flexi-loan is recommended.

2) Interest rate

As with all loans, your priority should probably be to go to the bank that offers you the lowest interest rate. Let’s consider a home loan of RM500,000, over a period of 30 years. The difference in interest payment between an interest rate of 4.2% and 4.15% (i.e. a mere 0.05%) could be well over RM5,000! 3) Margin of financing (how much you can borrow)

Depending on various factors which include the value of the property as well as your standing with the bank, different banks may offer you different margins of financing. As you will be required to pay any amount not covered by the home loan upfront, this becomes very important, especially if you’re short on cash.

Let’s consider a house that costs RM500,000. You will need to pay RM100,000 upfront if your margin of financing is 80%, but you will only need to pay RM50,000 upfront if your margin of financing is 90%. 4) Lock-in period

Lock-in period is the period you will incur a penalty if you choose to pay off your home loan in full before it reaches the end of its tenure. Usually, the penalty is between 2% and 3% of the principle loan amount. When it comes to choosing a home loan, it pays to have a lock-in period that is as short as possible with a penalty that is as low as possible. Also, some banks do not charge a penalty at all if sufficient notice is given. 5) Fees & charges

A home loan application involves professional and government-regulated processes. This includes preparation and disbursement of loan agreement, payment of stamp duty and processing by the bank, just to name a few. All these processes usually come with fees and charges that will be borne by you, the buyer.

In certain cases, it may also be wholly, or partly ,borne by the banks as part of your loan package. Hence, it is best to sit down with the loan officers (with all the banks you are considering taking your home loan from) and get them to run through with you the fees and charges that will be incurred. The task may be repetitive and time-consuming, but it will be time well spent.

6) The bank

Lastly, understand that you’ll be dealing with the bank on a frequent basis for as long as your home loan is in effect (which may be 20 to 30 years). With that in mind, you should probably choose a bank you are comfortable with. Some of the things you may wish to think about include:

·Do you have an existing savings or current account with the bank (for ease of inter-account transfer)?

·Are you satisfied with their standard of service?

·Is a local branch available near your home or office?

·Do you consider the bank to be trustworthy and reliable?

·Does the bank offer value-added services that will make your life easier for the long haul?

·How is the bank’s reputation as a whole?

·Does the bank provide online banking facilities? This will allow you to pay your instalments easily.

·Is your loan officer approachable? Can you call him when you have a question?

Bearing all these in mind, good luck in finding your next home loan. nThis article is provided by www.iMoney.my which compares various loans, savings and insurance schemes available in Malaysia. - The Star

IJM’s Rimbayu project well received

WHEN IJM Land Bhd launched phase one of Rimbayu, it generated a lot of interest surprisingly because Rimbayu is located after Kota Kemuning, off the Kesas Highway from Subang Jaya.

About 18,000 registered, 2,000 came for the balloting, four times the total units available for sale. Its second phase, to be launched in July/August, will also be sold via the balloting process. There are two things to note from this.

The first is the strong interest for a township project, far though it may seem. Rimbayu is located about 20km from Summit in USJ, Petaling Jaya. Kota Kemuning is about 15km from Summit.

The second thing to note is the huge appetite for landed housing, which seems to be located further out from established areas.

Phase one was sold at RM270-RM280 per sq ft with an absolute price of about RM580,000.

The previous landed housing offering was Glomac Bhd's Lakeside in Puchong which also generated a lot of interest. Phase 2 Rimbayu, like phase one, will be a non-strata guarded development. Gated and guarded landed strata may be in phase 3, IJM Land Bhd group managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Soam Heng Choonsays.

He is also of the view that property prices will be taking a breather this year.

“Then only will it (property cycle) run a bit longer. If prices go up 0.5%, it will be more sustainable,” he says.

Nonetheless, he has noticed that cycles are getting shorter nowadays, unlike before.

“Cost of funds will remain low and the Government will not increase interest rates. So mortgage rates will remain attractive. Malaysia has a young population, so the buying should continue,” he says.

Rimbayu is a township development, offering bread-and-butter housing, which is one of IJM Land's property development forte. The other type of residential it does well is niche housing, says Soam. An example of this would be its resort-like residential project The Light in Penang.

Rimbayu and The Light will be two of four core projects the company will be focusing on in the immediate term.

Purchasers of Rimbayu are from Subang Jaya, Kota Kemuning, Puchong and Klang with 70% of the buyers expected to be owner occupiers, Soam says.

The distance aside, its main selling point would be its green concept. Comprising about 1,900 acres, the township will take 10 to 15 years to complete, depending on the economic situation, says Soam.

There is another tract of land of about 200 acres next to it. Higher end housing has been proposed there, but IJM Land's chief focus will be on the larger tract for now.

To provide better access, Soam says the company will be spending millions to improve connectivity via internal roads. The group has also proposed to build a new West Coast Expresseway linking Banting to the northern state of Perak.

The other developer in that area is Dijaya Corp Bhd, who acquired 1,172 acres. This means that in time to come, landed units will be located further out, away from the main established areas.

Rimbayu will have about 10,000 households when completed. As a comparison, Desa ParkCity has 473 acres and when completed, it will have 7,000 households, although Desa ParkCity is not a township. Rimbayu is about four times the size of Desa ParkCity. About 10% of Rimbayu will be commercial space. Conventional shophouses, a shopping complex, a community mall, serviced apartments and condominiumes will be added later on.

“We will get better value if we bring in the masses and then put in the commercial elements,” he says.

This is the strategy the masses first, followed by commercials the company is having for its Penang project The Light.

Commercial projects for The Light is in the final stages of design today. Land reclamation has just completed and physical construction is expected to start in 2014.

Light Collection

The company launched its residential developments a couple of years ago. Its Light Collection III residentials, launched in late 2012, is about 70%, of which 90% were sold to Penangites.

“The Penang market is vibrant. Property prices will hold,” he says.

Collection III comprises 20 duplex townhouses facing the sea and 170 units of condominium suites. Sea-fronting units with private jetty is priced between RM1,000 and RM1,200 per sq ft compared with non-sea front units at about RM800 per sq ft.

Collection IV will be launched next year comprising 19 units of sea-front villas.

There are currently two main mixed development projects in Penang The Light and E&O's Seri Tanjung Pinang.

Soam says there is no competition between them as both projects are on different locations with The Light next to the Penang Bridge.

On Penang prices today, he says there is no bubble.

“The situation on the island is very much like that of Hong Kong and Singapore,” he says. Hence, prices should hold, he says. Hong Kong and Singapore property prices have increased cosiderably the last several years and are among the highest in the region.

While interest is expected to continue to be vibrant in Penang and the Klang Valley, there may be some doubts about Johor. There is certainly a lot of interest there but yield is missing.

Nonetheless, IJM's foray into Johor started in the 2003 and chances are, it would have accumulated land there years ago before the current price hike.

The company also has several developments in southern Johor. Its three largest land bank would be the 1,188-acre Sebana Cove, 200-acre Nasa City, next to Taman Kempas Indah and 250 acres in Mount Austin. It bought Sebana Cove development, north of the proposed refinery and petrochemical plant in Pengerang, in 2008 from the Arab Malaysia group.

Sebana Cove is where landed housing and resort living converge while mass market housing will be suitable for the Johor Baru market, Soam says.

“Sebana Cove will be a resort development with landed housing, a golf course and a marina. We expect a community of expatriates to be there (as a result of the developments in Pengerang).”

Besides the expected growth in Pengerang, the other factor is Singapore, says Soam. The company will launch Nasa City projects, next to Kempas towards the later part of this year and Sebana Cove next year.

While the property developer has a number of ongoing developments in different states, its Pantai Sentral Park project is expected to generate much interest in the Klang Valley.

The 58-acre project is next to YTL Land's Pantai Hill Park and is close to 200 acres of green lung in Bukit Gasing. This will be a mixture of low and high-rise commercial and residential development with a GDV of RM3bil. MRT Line 2

That value will be boosted if the proposed Mass Rapid Transit Line 2, which passes through Pantai Dalam, materialises. On the company's longer term focus, Soam says IJM Land will like to diversity abroad.

“The foreign exchange rate is in our favour so it is a good opportunity for us. London is a transparent market and we can see the margins,” he says, referring to their £300mil London investment near Tower Bridge.

They are planning to launch it at the end of this year.

“We are looking for further developments there. We don't want to go in a rush, we want to cherry pick,” said Soam.

Soam say they will have 300 units with a mixture of one, two and three-room units. The company also has investments in China and Vietnam.

“For the longer term, we would like to diversify abroad, but for the immediate term, we will focus on our local projects here as 95% of our contributions are derived from within Malaysia,” says Soam. - The Star

Penang Real Estate | Penang Property | Penang Properties: Bayan Lepas SMI Facotry For Rent (F2)

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Penang Real Estate | Penang Property | Penang Properties: Baystar Condominium For Rent (C57)

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