KPJ buying building in KL

PETALING JAYA: KPJ Healthcare Bhd has entered into a conditional agreement with Danaharta Hartanah Sdn Bhd (DHSB) to acquire Menara 238 (the former Menara Marinara) in Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur for RM206mil.

KPJ said in a Bursa Malaysia filing that the acquisition should be completed by the early third quarter of 2014.

The company said the purchase would be financed via a combination of internal funds of RM41mil and through external borrowings.

STAR October 18, 2013

Why peo­ple can’t sell their homes?

The en­vi­ron­ment for sell­ing a home is not with­out its chal­lenges, es­pe­cially in a tough prop­erty mar­ket.
But for a few un­for­tu­nate in­di­vid­u­als, try­ing to sell off their prop­erty (even in good times) can be next to im­pos­si­ble, no mat­ter what they do!
The fol­low­ing are rea­sons why some po­ten­tial sell­ers have prob­lems dis­pos­ing off their homes.

Bad lo­ca­tion
We all know this one – when its comes to suc­cess­fully sell­ing your prop­erty, it’s all about lo­ca­tion, lo­ca­tion, lo­ca­tion. What amounts to good or bad lo­ca­tion is ac­tu­ally quite ob­jec­tive. But se­ri­ously, how bad is “bad?”
Ac­cord­ing to Malaysian In­sti­tute of Es­tate Agents (MIEA) pres­i­dent Siva Shanker, there are some lo­ca­tions that no­body wants to live in.
“This could be at a T-junc­tion, next to an ox­i­da­tion pond or even a power sub­sta­tion,” he tells StarBizweek.
Siva adds that many buy­ers are also re­luc­tant to pur­chase homes lo­cated near over­head power lines.
“We have a set stan­dard based on guide­lines by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion on how far these lines need to be away from the homes. But re­gard­less, buy­ers still pre­fer not to live in ar­eas where there are power lines near by.”
Carey Real Es­tate Sdn Bhd man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Nixon Paul says most Malaysians can be quite su­per­sti­tious about where they choose to live.
“Peo­ple are re­ally into the feng shui el­e­ment. Houses with the num­bers four on them, are typ­i­cally dif­fi­cult to sell.
“And this is even among nonChi­nese buy­ers, who fear that they might not be able to sell the prop­erty in the fu­ture.
“A house sit­u­ated next to a sew­er­age fa­cil­ity or a ceme­tery can be a prob­lem when to sell,” he says.

Ter­ri­ble con­di­tion
You’re not go­ing to be able to at­tract buy­ers if your home looks like it could col­lapse at any time.
“A di­lap­i­dated place over­grown with grass and where the walls are full of cracks or leaky roof is un­likely to at­tract any buyer,” says one in­dus­try ob­server.
Siva how­ever feels that a run­down prop­erty could ac­tu­ally be a bless­ing in dis­guise.
“I feel that it’s bet­ter to buy a dump for a cheaper price, and then spend some money to re­fur­bish it into its for­mer glory, or some­thing even bet­ter.”

Siva says many Malaysian buy­ers can­not “vi­su­alise” the po­ten­tial of a di­lap­i­dated home.
“The av­er­age buyer can’t see what a house that is in ut­ter dis­re­pair can be turned into, be­cause all they see is a home that is in ter­ri­ble con­di­tion.
“On the other hand, when he vis­its a de­vel­oper’s show unit, he is so cap­ti­vated by what he sees be­cause it (the show unit) looks so amaz­ing. In his mind, he thinks he’s pur­chas­ing that prop­erty but what he’s ac­tu­ally buy­ing is an empty shell.”
Siva says spend­ing a bit of money to spruce up a place can be ben­e­fi­cial. “Why not spend RM20,000 to spruce up a place worth RM500,000 so that you can sell it for RM550,000?”
He says the sit­u­a­tion is sim­i­lar even for ten­an­cies.
“Most land­lords are also un­will­ing to ren­o­vate a place to make it look more at­trac­tive. In­stead, they would rather wait for a con­firmed ten­ant and then only ren­o­vate.
“This may not even hap­pen (se­cur­ing a ten­ant).
“This is where home-stag­ing comes in,” says Siva.
The con­cept of home-stag­ing, which is aimed at im­prov­ing the prop­erty’s ap­pear­ance in the eyes of po­ten­tial buy­ers (with the ul­ti­mate goal of a quick sale and for a bet­ter price tag), is pop­u­lar es­pe­cially among coun­tries in the West.
Stag­ing usu­ally in­volves some­thing aes­thetic, im­prov­ing the de­sign, or­gan­i­sa­tion and over­all ap­pear­ance of a prop­erty.
In some in­stances, the po­ten­tial suc­cess of sell­ing your home can be de­pen­dant on the con­di­tion of your neigh­bour’s prop­erty.
“If your neigh­bour’s house is run-down or di­lap­i­dated, your house can also be­come af­fected,” says Nixon.

Un­rea­son­able prices
Another in­stant where prop­erty can be hard to sell is when the seller sets the price of the prop­erty ridicu­lously high.
“This is a typ­i­cal case of over­pric­ing, where the owner is just greedy and the ask­ing price is too high.
“And be­cause of this, the prop­erty re­mains in the mar­ket for­ever,” says Siva.
He adds that in re­cent times, strin­gent loan ap­provals have also made it tough for pur­chasers to get a loan.
“You might find a buyer, but then he might have a prob­lem get­ting a loan.”
Un­der Bank Ne­gara’s re­spon­si­ble lend­ing guide­lines, which were im­ple­mented on Jan 1 last year, loans are now ap­proved based on net in­come com­pared with gross in­come pre­vi­ously.

STAR, October 20, 2013

Supply and demand is most significant cause of rising property prices

Real Estate and Housing Developer’s Association (Rehda) national treasurer Datuk N K Tong recently said that the escalating prices of properties, was significantly caused by the supply and demand factor.

 

“As land prices continue to rise, there is also the issue of not producing houses fast enough to cater to the increasing demand.

 

“We need to accelerate the number of units being built and this can be done when all parties work closely,” said Tong, adding that a property market report by the National Property Information Centre (Napic) showed the existing stock nationwide in the first quarter of 2013 was 4.6mil residential units (excluding kampung and estate houses).

 

The report also said the average housing completion yearly was 100,000 units relative to the average annual household formation, which was 140,000.

 

Tong also noted that the delay in issuing approvals was also a reason why property prices had increased tremendously over the years.

 

“When there is a delay in issuing planning approvals, development costs, which include utility costs, tend to increase, resulting in more costs passed down to house buyers,” he said.

 

He added that Rehda had been continously engaging with the Government and utility companies like Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Telekom Malaysia and Indah Water Konsortium Sdn Bhd, among others, to find ways to resolve the matter.

 

“Unfortunately, despite all these issues, the public still has the misconception that the developers are to be blamed for escalating property prices,” said Tong, adding that the best way to tackle the issue was to hasten approval time, decrease red tape and utility costs, as well as building more affordable houses to cater to the population.

 

While everyone has a role to play, Tong suggested that the Government should also look at ways of relocating some of the subsidies and allocate the sum for more affordable homes to be built instead.

On Aug 29, Selangor Development Corporation (PKNS) general manager Othman Omar had also said that delays in issuing planning approval can lead to an increase in development costs of about 20% to 30%, which, in turn, increases the development cost from RM5 per sq ft to RM30 per sq ft. The cost would then be passed down to the house buyer.

 

Othman also mentioned that outdated and inconsistent requirements from local councils also contributed to the contrasting cost of houses in different jurisdictions.

 

Meanwhile, Tong said the second Malaysia Property Expo (Mapex) of the year would be held from Oct 25 to 27 and it was expected to generate RM300mil in sales.

 

He said REHDA was confident that the property event would be more successful than the first Mapex in April, which recorded RM200mil in sales.

 

He said about 92 property developers would be participating in the event, which would also include several free public talks on a variety of subjects.

 

Star, October 17, 2013