Thursday, December 27, 2012

Episode 1 - Land Grab - Along the Kelana Jaya Line Extension

Kelana Jaya Line
The proposed Kelana Jaya Line Extension will begin from Kelana Jaya station and pass through 13 new stations, including Subang Jaya and USJ before ending at Putra Heights, covering a distance of 17km.

 
All stations will have facilities such as lifts, escalators, public telephones, surau and public toilets. The stations will also be equipped with Universal Access facilities such as ramps, tactile tiles, low ticket counters and toilets for the disabled.

The project is expected to be completed in 2014.



You may get more details and updates here http://www.lrtextension.com/about-project/extension-alignment


Towards the end of 2008, my condo at 231TR was nearing completion. I had already planned to sell it to prepare for my next acquisition. At that time, I was heavily researching landed and strata properties in SS17 and SS15 Subang Jaya. I really like these 2 locations for the potential and glad that I wasn't wrong. However, I am not so glad that I failed to buy any landed properties here at that time.

The 1st target was a end-lot link house with 10feet land at the same row as the SS15 McDonalds drive-thru. The house was beautiful and I loved the house so much. The seller wanted RM580k and subsequently, he reduced the price to RM550k. I, being such a "smart negotiator", citing some imaginary valuation, offered him RM480k and then I was happy to go up to RM500k. Seller told me he does not believe in valuations and in a way told me sod off. Then he managed to sell it for RM530k. This was early 2009. Today in 2012, houses with that kind of land in SS15 has been transacting at about RM1million. Never mind the value today, my heart felt like it was cut up and shredded to pieces at that time.

Then, there was another end-lot although this one without land, also in SS15. I liked it because it was facing a large field and there was a police box right outside the house. SS15 is not a safe area and having a police box is really reassuring. The seller wanted RM360k for this house and it was in a really bad condition, ridden with termites. I loved it because it was a basic house and there was so much you can do with it. In another failed strategy, I sent a friend to negotiate and talk down the place before I made my move. He was very good at criticizing and I was hoping this will make the owner think he should quickly sell it off to me - the knight in shining armour who will be coming in with a much better offer than my friend. But this only made the seller pissed off and finally he did manage to sell it at RM360k... luckily to someone who renovated the house very tastefully..

So, I never managed to get a landed house in SS15 or SS17 in 2009. And 3 years later today, intermediate link houses here in these 2 locations are being transacted from a low of RM650k up to RM750k.

I believe the announcement about the Kelana Jaya extension in late 2011 was partly responsible for this. A friend also told me, she did a calculation of just basic costs to build a 22 feet wide and 50feet long double storey house and the cost was no lower than RM450k - this is constrcution and materials costs, minus the land cost. And with the population boom in the Klang Valley, FREEHOLD land prices shooting up, we know this all time high prices can only go higher.... never lower....

 
 
So, still with a budget close to what I had in 2009, I looked along the route of the Kelana Jaya extension but I was only prepared to go as far as USJ20 as I am not familiar with Putra Heights. Now, I am sure there are other potential areas as well, such as along the Ampang Line extension and the brand new KL MRT project. However, as I have always been touting, we should only invest where we are familiar... so, it's Subang Jaya and USJ for me...
 
From SS15/SS17, the LRT routes into SS14/SS18. The only thing landed I can get in SS18 and SS14 with this budget are the single storey houses. One can add a 1/2 storey mezzanine to it but that's really the full potential of it so I gave this a miss...
 
To be continued...  



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