Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Beware of KL City Rental Scam

Recently a friend looking to rent an apartment in the city found a very good deal via an online portal. Apparently, a British expat advertised his studio apartment at Casa Mutiara condominium in Bukit Bintang. He said he has gone back to the UK and would like to rent his apartment out for RM1,000 including utilities. This is of course, sounds too good to be true and whenever you have deals like this, you want to think twice.

The advertiser then said since he is in the UK, the interested party must deposit a sum of RM2000 as deposit to iproperty. Then iproperty would instruct him to ship the keys to the interested party for inspection of the property. Within 24 hours days if you are not interested with the property, you can get a full refund.

Obviously the advertiser thinks everyone trusts the name iproperty. However, in closer inspection, the money is not banked in to iproperty's account.


So, if one is not vigilant and checks the fact then it's bye bye to your money...

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Confused on Effects of GST

More discussions on the GST effect on property prices here...

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2015/02/01/Mixed-views-on-house-prices-GST-increase-minimal-and-developers-should-absorb-it-says-Subromaniam/

According to people in the know, the increase if any will be minimal. The customs department, in my opinion, knows shit about property business says prices will fall or remain the same because developers should absorb GST costs. Developers or any businessmen in Malaysia as we all know will increase prices. When oil price went up, although the effect on cost is less than 2%, we have seen prices of food, essentials and logistics increase 10% to 20%. Sugar price increased by 20sen, effect should be less than 0.05% and we saw our coffee and cakes prices go up 20%. So do you think developers will absorb costs?

One guy even says there is going to be oversupply of residential units and such property prices will fall. But such blanket statement borders on ignorance and shouldn't be taken seriously at all. Because every urban area in Malaysia, the government is under pressure to build homes because there is an undersupply. So, this chap is talking about over supply. I am sure later he will use examples of Rawang and Bukit Beruntung to show prices are stagnant or falling. But let's talk about KL, PJ, Subang Jaya etc. If this guy thinks the prices there will fall, I urge him to sell his properties to me at these falling prices.