Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Mews By E&O

The Mews is located at Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, behind the Stadium Negara steamboat restaurant. This restaurant is one of those old businesses. Once located at the iconic stadium, it has since relocated here. The food unfortunately has gone downhill too with the commercialization. 


The Mews address is not quite KLCC but close enough. My concern about this location is Jalan Yap Kwan Seng itself, which gets clogged up every weekday and weekends alike due to the crowd going to party at a not-so-straight club in the area. 


But then again, which part of KL is not jam during peak hours? However, the experience of driving almost 2 hours from Bukit Bintang to have dinner at the Stadium Restaurant one rainy night is still haunting me...

E&O is building 2 blocks of 38-storeys, with over 250 units ranging from 1-bedroom to 3-bedrooms apartments. There is no showroom to look at now but the scale model available at the E&O sales office seems to suggest that the set up and landscape will be similar to their flagship St Mary Residences, and with a bit of retro tinge. One wonders if in 3 years time, this concept will still be in fashion.

The 2 towers are arranged in 2 V-shapes forming a W, strangely... (unless I have my orientation wrong), they face away from the favourite KLCC Twin Towers view.

The 1-bedroom units appear to be quite hot, despite the over RM1.2million price tag. They are selling very fast. In fact, the best units are the corner type-A as compared to the intermediate type-A1. Of course, pay more for the type A. 



Unlike St Mary's, E&O has not announced that there will be any hospitality partner occupying part of the building. Perhaps there are no plans for this, and the Mews will purely be residential. Therefore, in my opinion, since 70% of the units are 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom apartments, this might make it a bit challenging to find tenants willing to pay the premium RM5psf rental in order to make this investment interesting.




So, it makes me wonder if the larger units are actually more viable here for own-stay or for rich people to keep as their play houses. E&O is partnering a well-established Japanese Developer, Mitsui to develop this project and it is understood that there has been a lot of interests from Japanese buyers.


Unfortunately, there is a massive glut of larger unit condominiums in the KLCC area resulting in price dumping for rentals. But this only affects the less popular projects like Glomac's Suria Stonor. Well executed projects such as Binjai-on-the-Park and Park Seven still commands good occupancy and rentals. So it is essential, for The Mews to be successful, it has to be done up to the standards of the other iconic projects such as the 2 mentioned, St Mary's Residences and the Troika. 

E&O is also cleverly marketing The Mews overseas before a proper launch in Malaysia to attract foreign buy-ins. With a large and strong foreign investment, it is likely most buyers will have the holding power to ward of any price dumps.  And holding-power is the all important word - since this is a commercial plot of land, the utility and city-hall rates are going to be an absolute killer, coupled with the hefty maintenance fee of RM0.60psf making even the smallest 1-bedroom unit costing over RM600 to keep. 

11 comments:

RE said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
RE said...

Hi, can you please compare the mews against sixceylon and st Mary's. as I consider buying property in one of these.

Buy to let for investment. 5 to 10 year investment horizon.

Thanks

sinleong said...

of course you cant compare mews vs st mary and sixceylon. st mary is completed, you can collect rent straight away and you can only buy sub-sale. sixceylon is sold out, and only sub-sale available. the mews you'll be buying off the plan and with DIBS most people are just looking to flip in 3-4 years time. anyway, i was at an E&O event recently and met many friends who told me they are not interested in the mews due to the yap kwan seng location - similar sentiments as me. i think the mews will attract many overseas buyers who by looking at the plans will get excited by the proximity to klcc without understanding the road/traffic and surrounding conditions

WW said...

Hi Sinleong, what about a one bedroom as a long term investment? Will the mews be purely for flipping? Is this location nor worth it for a 1500psf tag? Thanks

sinleong said...

in the long term the price should be able to appreciate. however, do you have holding power if the rental goes below interests? personally i don't like this location. it's not quite like business and shopping district where you walk down and everything is there. one end of yapkwanseng is jalan ampang, interesting but the other end is tun razak... hard to describe but you should go there and take a look. there are still some plots of land around it which will be developed at a later stage.

WW said...

Hi Sin Leong,


I am thinking of purchasing a one bed room unit (922sqft) to rent out at RM5000 per month. I am concerned if this is realistic given that there are other condos (i.e. Hampshire Residences) around the Yap Kwan Seng area. Also, at >RM1.4million for 922sqft I am not sure if there can be much appreciation beyond 1550rm psf. As I am going to sign the SPA soon I hope to get some advice as to how this compares to St Marys! Is the location that bad here? Thanks.

sinleong said...

in terms of distance, mews is closer to klcc but i dont think the location is comparable. there're still a lot of empty land in YKS area. maybe it may not take long for jln yap kwan seng to develop . 5k is realistic but it might take a while to secure tenants.

WW said...

I see. Given your experience you think that 1550psf is currently over priced? I have came across opinions that the prices will get to 1800psf..just wondering if there are buyers if we look to sell in the future? Also, would you know in general what is the typical vacancy period to rent out?

sinleong said...

depends on your luck. judging from st mary as an experience, the 1st 3-4 months were slow. after that tenants started flowing in and i think occupancy is quite high now, probably 70-80%. in my opinion, prices will get to even RM2000psf in the klcc area and in fact some projects are already launching over this price e.g. fourseasons, tribeca etc. problem is, how many malaysians have this type of money to buy and how many foreigners are coming in to by properties in malaysia in the next 5 to 10 years?

WW said...

Interesting considerations! Will The Manhattan at Jalan Raja Chulan triumph E&O's The Mews with the location?

sinleong said...

in terms of location, yes but they are 2 different projects and different market segment altogether. i'd put the mews on one class higher