Investing in Students Accomodation

Finally taken possession of the Pangsapuri Subang Jaya in SS15 and had little under 2 weeks to complete renovations before students move in. Yes, we managed to get tenants even before collecting the keys. I wonder why I have been wasting so much time and money in expats market for the past 10 years.

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The most fortunate thing to happen to us was to find a very good contractor. Philip, wife, son and his team managed to turn the whole dump into a nicely liveable student dorm which includes the following:

1. Retile 2 bathrooms and some broken floor tiles

2. Convert a kitchen into a bedroom

3. Moved the kitchen to the dining area

4. Plumbing works to move the kitchen and bathroom sinks

5. Moved the master bedroom door to enable access to the bedroom's bath and toilet - we did this to enable a ratio of 2 rooms to 1 bathroom

6. Laminate the floors of the bedrooms

7. Painting; and

8. All fittings, including curtains, accessories etc.

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Here's the result:

The living room - we initially thought about converting this to yet another bedroom but decided against it as we wanted to provide the students with a common area to hang out. Also access to the balcony to dry their clothes.

This is the new kitchen. In hindsight, we should not have relied too much in Ikea. The stainless steel kitchen you see is not suitable for an electric stove as we were later worried that there might be electrical leakage. It's also too small. So, we had to make do with a single hob gas stove. Having the students' welfare in mind, we installed a water filter which is fit for drinking. The kitchen, I must admit is a little spartan and probably only suitable for some light cooking and heating up snacks.

2 of the bedrooms have a swimming pool view. We maintained the cheapy long fluorescent lamp as it does a good job brightening up the room. we replaced the curtains with black-out blinds and laminated the floor. This picture taken before the place is furnished.

The swimming pool view.

This used to be the kitchen and has since been converted into a bedroom. The wet kitchen is now a balcony to enjoy the pool view. I thought earlier of converting it into a sexy shower area but decided against it due to time constraint and avoid getting myself into trouble. Every bedroom is air-conditioned and later furnished with 2 wall mounted book shelves, a wardrobe, bed+mattress, writing desk + chair and fan. This picture taken before the blinds was installed.



We retiled all the bathrooms with white tiles and black grouting to lend that modern touch. The WCs have been changed to these modern single units from Johnson Suisse - expensive stuffs but since we are going to let this last a long time, why not? Since we moved the sink outside the bathroom, there is more space for the shower and we built a tempered glass partition so that the WC does not get wet after the shower is used.

We also installed a Grundfos pump so that our students can enjoy their power shower.

As mentioned we moved the sink outside and this is a designer Johnson Suisse sink with tap. Why move it outside? So that we have more space inside the bathroom for an orgy and so that students rushing for their class in the morning do not need to wait for someone to finish on the pooper before brushing his/her teeth. There are 2 bathrooms.

We moved the sink out from the 2nd bathroom too and installed a washing machine. There is a tall glass mirror on the wall for one to admire herself before stepping out to go to class.

One might think we are crazy to spend so much on quality items for a students' house. I think it is not wasting money because as much as expats would pay us good rental for our CBD apartments with interior design, the students are paying just as much. There are 4 rooms in this house and total 5 occupants. We are fully booked for at least the next 1-2 years without even having to engage estate agents to market for us. Returns > 10%.