Malaysia Money Matters

It's a Malaysian dream to own a property - our culture is not geared towards renting long-term. Renting is considered something you do either as a student / newly working / a temporary solution if you're prone to being transferred - but in the long run, conventional wisdom is to bite the bullet and buy at least ONE property for your permanent residence. So the conundrum lies in the wherewithal for the deposit and attendant costs. To some, the need is urgent and saving up takes too long - so what are your options? The fastest but most expensive: Credit Card cash advance - that baby will hit you with an 18% p.a. interest rate the moment the cash comes out of the ATM. Do Not Use This Method. Please. Even though it pays my salary. The slightly less fast, also kinda expensive but sort-of bearable: Personal Loan - you can take a bigger amount, take a longer time to pay it off and you have that lump sum to help secure the property you want to buy. Only use this method ...

Am thinking of offering pro-bono financial advisory services to certain vulnerable segments of society here in Malaysia. Something along the lines of say, young LGBT Malaysians - especially the transgender community. I have a few transgender friends and a couple of them are doing well financially but the rest seem to struggle somewhat. Perhaps I can help but it's a sensitive subject to broach. Anyway, if any of you youngsters out there need someone to give some advice on how to get ahead financially - maybe Uncle here can help you or at least listen to you. Just drop a comment below and we'll take it from there. :)

A new development that is on the site of the old Century Paradise Country Club (more recently known as KK Club) in Taman Melawati. I noticed it this morning as I drove past, not having been in the area for some time - so naturally, checked out their website. The design and concept of this development is rather interesting - they have a range of sizes from 450 sf up to 2,000 sf - and 10 different layouts. What I like about the layout designs is that there are duplex options / iterations - i.e. the 450 sf studio is the basic unit, then you'd have a duplex design which follows the studio layout but doubling it. It's a personal bias of mine, I do like duplexes because it gives you the feeling like you're living in a house. AND I believe - looking at the floor plan - that the living room ceiling will be double the height in the duplexes; thus creating a very spacious feel that is missing in the standard 1-floor condo unit in Malaysia. Price is starting from RM684 per...

Check out brickz.my This website basically digitizes the public information of stamp duty paid on the sale price of all properties sold. Currently they have uploaded the data for the major urban areas of KL and Selangor. Believe Johor and Penang are on the way as is the rest of the country eventually. The great thing about it is that you can see a lot of details like transaction date, the price, property size and type - down to like intermediate or corner unit and even the floor level for condos and apartments. Hence, before you buy into an area or a unit, you can do an independent check yourself without relying on the real estate agent to get a good gauge of how much you should pay. The latest information is at the last 2 months - i.e. as of November, you will be able to see September 2015 data which is quite a good recency. Of course, for areas where there is active sales transactions, you will see up to September. Other areas that are quieter, you will see the most recent ...

Surfing around, I found an office lot at 750 square feet, freehold, RM80,000. 80,000 wei! Below 100k wei!! No affordable property meh?? In fact, it's in a quiet, kinda dead commercial area of a small suburb near KL but if one were innovative and had own transport - this is an ideal starter home! Say you're in your 30's with a family, single breadwinner earning 3k to 4k - just making ends meet. If you can get together 10k or 15k (your EPF should have some of that) - your loan payment per month on a 70k loan is like only RM350 or max RM400! That's only 10% or 15% of your salary and if you're renting a flat somewhere - you're likely to be paying 1.5 times that amount. Sure it's an office space, so what?! In fact, it's more convenient because of the sundry shops and cafes below. All I'm saying is, there are options if one looked and are prepared to take an unconventional step.

Well, that depends on your definition of "affordable" coupled with "liveable", isn't it? You can still get flats and apartment units for about 120k or 150k.. that means you need about RM500 to RM600 per month for repayment. At that price point, you *could* possibly get a 95% or 100% loan - usually from Islamic financing - especially from Bank Islam, Bank Rakyat and so on. So you hardly need any money down. Of course, you still need SOME money but if you're really serious about it then surely you can save it up? During my first job, many many years ago, my starting pay was RM1,700 (very decent already considering most of my peers were getting RM1,200) and I was staying with family - so my expenses were not very high, just transport and lunch - I managed to save up 3,000 in a few months. My only indulgence at the time was to get a couple of CDs a month - back then at RM40 each, expensive O! My bus fare per day was 50 sen minibus PJ to KL, then another ...

Many columnists and politicians (especially Opposition ones) like to harp on property prices being out-of-reach to the majority of people. This is a rather simplistic slogan that they like to keep repeating because a lot of people tend to agree with it at face value. Such a statement is only true up to a certain extent. To what extent, you ask, gentle reader? Well, if you are referring to newly launched properties by developers - then hella yes, they are QUITE expensive by both ticket size and cost per square foot! Why is this so? This is their pricing strategy - actually they give a lot of "rebates" and "discounts" to trick you into thinking that you are getting a good deal, AND that by these methods, you can get nearly 100% financing because the banks think you've paid down 10% but the developer is helping you "cheat" on this. Given the limited land available and the need to turn the maximum profit out of each project, developers will p...