Malton, the Crony Developer?

As we punters are probably aware, Malton is the developer in Malaysia responsible for some luxury projects such as Amaya Saujana, The Grove at SS23 PJ and The Pearl @ KLCC.
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They are now circulating around the blogs about being cronies of the current regime. Whether this is a positive or negative thing will largely depend on us, the punters:
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Desmond Lim - the new Chinaman kingpin of Putrajaya
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Desmond and Cindy: new crony kings?

Student Housing? Broadband Internet is the Answer!

In July this year, just barely 3 months ago, I wrote that Sunway PJS7's Mutiara Perdana is undergoing some kind of a boom. This apartment is located barely 5 minutes walk from the Taylor's College Campus. It was really hard to find any unit to invest in at that time as the demand for student rooms were high. It's September now and I can tell you that there are at least 10 units for sale and 9 rooms or whole apartments for rental.

Although there is a huge shortage of accomodation in Sunway PJS7, students are still shunning Mutiara Perdana. I have learnt that since the last couple of months, many have moved out. Some even prefer to live in PJS9 or PJS10 across the LDP highway.

Why is that?

Reminds me of the time I was in Kota Kinabalu. A friend summoned me to his hotel to help sort out his WiFi internet (Yes, if you guys need help in that area you can call me). The hotel is located right in the middle of the city and should have no problems getting guests as the location is very good. However, his guests would stay for a few hours, find that the internet doesn't work and move out straight after while demanding a refund.

Internet is a necessity these days. It is on par with other utilities such as Electricity, Telephone and Water. Imagine if you have no internet access at your house. For a day or 2 it's OK but if you are living there for a year, it can kill you.

Mutiara Perdana was abandoned by the developer who handed the units over without any sewerage and telephone utilities. The developer went bankrupt shortly after and disappeared. The amazing thing is, the local council MPSJ issued the Certificate of Fitness (CF) - it is obvious there was corruption involved. So, to cut it short, since occupying their units in 2008, there is no telephone. To make it worse, Indah Water Konsortium, the company that handles sewerage refused to take over the sewerage system - the apartment have to repair the system and manage it themselves!

Then, all the vultures start to set in... one TM contractor gave a quote to connect the Telephone risers in each block to the Telekom manhole for RM100k. And miraculously too, despite being located less than 400m from the main gate of Taylors College and the sorrounding upmarket Sunway area, none of the Wireless Internet Service Providers have coverage of Mutiara Perdana. And the signal level of the 3 major 3G broadband companies is miserably low.

I learnt recently that the developer price for each unit was RM95k without car park and RM15k for the car park. At the peak, the owners were even trying to sell at RM220k to RM240k. Last checked that they are now back down to RM180k to RM190k but judging from the number of units for sale, it looks like there is somewhat lack of interests here...

Shocking Monoland

Further on to my purchase of unit in Quadro from developer Monoland, where I based mainly my decision on the property being on Residential Title and the allocation of 2 car parks, this is what I have found out:

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1. Monoland sent me an sms one morning 27th August 2010 6.44a.m. stating that the title is Commercial... apparently they only just found out!

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2. The allocation of car park was not stated in the S&P - which later they provided an undertaking in a letter with a caveat "subject to approval of relevant plans by authorities"

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Now, this is incredible. Why do they require approval from " authorities" for the plans? If Monoland has not received approval for the plans, they aren't supposed to sell. Perhaps the reason why we have signed the S&P and Monoland still hasn't explains why.

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There has also been rumours that the rooftop facilities will be owned and managed by the developer and additional charges will be charged to residents who want to use them. While I am not too bothered by this, I wonder why the developer want to make things so complicated?

It is a fact that all residential or serviced apartment properties in KL which do not provide car parks do badly or don't appreciate as much as others in the market. Examples are Bidara, One Residency and 231TR. Monoland is starting to remind me of 231TR's developer Urban Delta with this kind of tricky mentality. Perhaps it is right that someone pointed out that Monoland is an OK developer for Titiwangsa Sentral but when entrusted with Multi-million Ringgit properties, that may be an entirely different issue.

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I hope this turns out OK, this being Monoland's 1st outing in the luxury KLCC market. If they fail here, their reputation will be forever tarnished.