Malaysia Money Matters

I was talking with a young acquaintance - friend of a friend - who was thinking of changing his car. Now, to be fair, this young man had recently recovered from a year of medical treatment for his cancer and he's now back in good health. So naturally, he's probably thinking of "rewarding" himself by getting a spanking new car that's way above his budget! Honestly, I DO understand very much how he would feel, wanting to get a powerful new car is a great feeling for most guys! Right right? But I probed a bit more and the financials doesn't make sense. He hasn't had any increase in salary but he is employed in a stable, semi-government organisation that is profit-generating, so no worries there vis-a-vis job security. In fact, his employer covered all his medical bills which is great for him. So after some brainwashing hehe he did settle on booking a smaller car while he thinks a bit more about it. My advice to him was to think strategically. Don...

Was at a mall just this morning and there were a few developers promoting some of their projects. Interesting thing is, this time around, they are trying to push through the remaining handful of units that they have left - usually 20 or 30 units still unsold and the project is about maybe 70% or 80% complete. They are also giving away rather generous rebates - I didn't have much time to go through the details but the sales lady quoted me 25%! So while you'd still have to pay the 10% initially which is quite substantial too because the unit in question was at 1.4 million, you will get it back from the developer. Then you'd end with applying for a 75% margin of finance loan but that is in effect a 100% loan. Same conundrum lo - are you truly getting a 25% discount or are you paying the true market value which is actually 75% of the quoted price? Anyway, the situation now that buyers can take advantage of is that these projects are almost done - the risk of abandonment...