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Thursday, February 23, 2012

IGB upbeat on G Residence take-up

KUALA LUMPUR: IGB Corp Bhd expects its strategically-located G Residence condominiums to sell out by the end of the year .

Jointly developed with SHL Consolidated Bhd on a 70:30 basis, G Residence is scheduled to be completed by February 2015.

It is located along Jalan Desa Pandan here on a 1.46ha site and overlooks the Royal Selangor Golf Club. The two-tower 23-storey residential development incorporates a multi-purpose hall, a gym, 30m lap pool and a common garden.

IGB head of property development, Teh Boon Ghee, said G Residence looks over on Lingkungan U-Thant, backs the Polo Club and neighbours the Royal Selangor Golf Club.

"G Residence is surrounded by a mature township of shop offices and cosy apartments. It is very affordable considering its location. Great Eastern Mall is just a leisurely 10-minute walk away," he said.

So far, 80 per cent of G Residence have been sold out. Priced at an average of RM650 per sq ft, the condominiums are sold between at RM610,000 and RM1 million per unit.

"All the units in Block A are sold out. Only 40 per cent units in Block B are still available," Teh told a press briefing here yesterday.

"Those who wish to buy G Residence units for investment can expect a rental yield of about 5.5 per cent. A 1,500-sq-ft unit can be rented out for RM4,000," he added.

Since the start of 2012, Bank Negara Malaysia mandates banks to explain to borrowers the implications of the loans they take, illustrating to them just how much more they will have to pay should the base lending rate go up.

This is applicable to housing and car loans, credit and charge cards, personal financing including overdraft facility and financing for the purchase of shares in the stock market.

Asked if the BNM ruling has affected property sales, Teh replied, "not really. Out of all the sales at G Residence, only a few buyers were seen to take a little longer to secure their home loans."

He then said it is worthwhile to note that starting July 2012, borrowers will not be penalised heavily for early settlement of their housing loans.

Instead, banks will only be allowed to charge for the cost incurred in processing the loan and not for profit loss from the early repayment.

By Business Times

Building on foreign interest in properties

The cooling property markets in China and Singapore should help attract foreign buyers to Malaysia, say industry players.

China has tightened loans,restricted purchases of multiple properties and imposed higher down payments while Singapore has introduced tougher measures aimed at foreign buyers, who have become increasingly visible in the residential sector.

“This is a good time for Malaysia to attract foreign buyers. But there are three key areas that we have to improve on, which are security, education and healthcare,” said Bandar Utama Development Sdn Bhd managing director, Datuk Teo Chian Kok.

Khong & Jaafar managing director Elvin Fernandez said there was a future for properties in Malaysia as more foreigners were expected to invest here.

He said once projects under the Economic Transformation Programme kicked in, there would be more demand for residential properties.

“The focus now is to make the city more robust and there will be automatic response,” he said at a media roundtable at Balai Berita, here, yesterday.

Real Estate And Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) immediate past president Datuk Ng Seing Liong said the first
national-level Malaysian Property Exposition (Mapex) for 2012 would be a good platform to introduce Malaysian properties to overseas buyers.

Mapex 2012, to be held from March 2 to 4 at the Mid Valley
Exhibition Centre here, will have 85 developers showcasing more
than 300 housing developments across Malaysia.

The exposition, themed “Home and Abroad”, will also have foreign developers showcasing their projects here for the first time.
They include Century Properties Inc from the Philippines and Knight Knox International from Britain.

Ng said Mapex 2012 was expected to generate property sales of up to RM100 million.

By Business Times

Mudra Tropika's RM30m project

JOHOR-based property developer, Mudra Tropika Sdn Bhd, is currently undertaking a niche RM30 million project to turn what was once an undeveloped enclave into an ultra-exclusive boutique residences in the heart of Johor Baru.

Called 28@Gertak Merah, the new lifestyle residential area is located in the old quarter of the southern city in Jalan Mustapha near the Istana Besar's Royal Gardens and the Abu Bakar Mosque.

With only 28 limited edition units of semi-detached homes on international leasehold lots, the houses start from RM1,177 million to RM2.534 million.

The units cover a total of 1.861ha, which is surrounded by greenery and away from the hustle and bustle of the city's commercial areas.

It is learnt that the project is designed with a modern colonial-cum-tropical concept. Every unit will be equipped as a modern smart home with an alarm system, complete with panic buttons and an automatic gate. The residential area will be a 24-hour guarded commune.

Mudra Tropika chief executive officer Mohd Nazim Sabtu said the 28@Gertak Merah project's main advantage is its strategic location on prime land, about three kilometres from the Johor Baru city centre.

"The main concept and objective is to deliver exclusive living with unobstructed hill view, low density, privacy and landscaped environment. In a nutshell, its an exclusive residential area in the heart of Johor Baru," he told Business Times when met yesterday.

Nazim said they had planned the concept of having a low-density boutique residences about two years ago.

The 28@Gertak Merah project is the latest addition to Johor Baru's growing, but exclusive market for high-end lifestyle residential properties which is priced more than RM1 million.

Once completed, it will be a main part of the Flagship A zone under the Iskandar Malaysia economic development corridor.

Nazim, who is also a director of Mudra Tropika, revealed that the company has always put pride in being different when it comes to property development, and the 28@Gertak Merah project is testament of this.

Despite talk that this year will see a slowdown in property sales, he said Mudra Tropika is confident that it can achieve 50 per cent of sales for 28@Gertak Merah by this year.

The figure equates to RM20 million in the project's gross development value.

"The groundwork has started and the project is scheduled to be completed by early 2014," said Nazim.

Mudra Tropika was established in 2006 and was initially put in charge to privatise and develop several parcels of state government land.

The company has seen the development of several Malay Reserve land in the Nong Chik area starting with Nongchik Heights, D'Permata homes, a block of three-storey commercial shoplots, the Nongchik Riverside commercial project and of late the 28@Gertak Merah project.

By Business Times

SP Setia confident of hitting sales target

SP Setia Bhd is still confident of achieving its sales target of RM4 billion in its financial year ending Oct 31, 2012 despite Bank Negara Malaysia's new guidelines for loan borrowers.

President and chief executive officer Tan Sri Liew Kee Sin who welcomed the ruling, said the move would ensure only genuine buyers who had no financial problems own a property.

"The whole idea of the central bank is to dampen property bubble or credit bubble which is going on.

"Though the ruling will definitely affect the property sector, but we in SP Setia is confident that we can still achieve RM4 billion sales, driven by both local and foreign property sales," he told a media conference after the company's annual general meeting in Shah Alam, Selangor today.

Under Bank Negara's new guidelines that took effect from Jan 1, a prospective loan borrower will be assessed based on net income basis (instead of gross income) after deducting statutory deductions for tax and EPF and all other debt obligations (eg. car loan, other housing loan, credit cards).

Liew said SP Setia had already locked in sales of RM933 million for the first quarter of its current financial year ended Jan 31, 2012.

This represented a 27 per cent increase over the sales achieved in the corresponding period of previous year of RM737 million.

Liew said sustained demand for properties in the group's existing projects in the Klang Valley, Johor Baru and Penang would continue to underpin the group's sales performance in the 2012 financial year.

"We have many exciting new projects to help us capture new markets and further diversify our product mix.

"Our strong balance sheet also gives us ample room to continue to aggressively pursue opportunities to acquire good landbank thereby locking in future growth," he said.

Meanwhile, Liew said the SP Setia group also was keen on the London and Vietnam markets and was looking at opportunities there.

"We are looking at acquiring land in downtown Hanoi and Ho Chi Min for our property projects which will be more customer-based.

"SP Setia is also looking at acquiring land for property projects in London city as we want to make London an important market for SP Setia," he said.

Elsewhere, he said the group was targeting at least 30 to 50 per cent sales of its projects in Singapore would be from Malaysian buyers despite the 10 per cent increase in stamp duty for foreign buyers in the republic.

In Singapore, he said, the group would launch its maiden project namely a high-rise condominium development called Woodsville.

By Bernama

Sentoria debuts on the Main Market at 84 sen

KUALA LUMPUR: Sentoria Group Bhd, made its debut on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia Securities at 84 sen today, with 3,000 shares traded.

The shares recorded a discount of three sen over its offer price of 87 sen.

Sentoria, the first company listing for this year, is the developer and operator of Bukit Gambang Resort City (BGRC) in Kuantan, Pahang.

It is also the first and largest water park resort city in the east coast of Malaysia.

The company had earlier said it had received a total of 6,829 applications for 127.2 million shares with a total value of RM108.1 million, for the public tranche of 20.0 million shares under the group's initial public offering (IPO).

Its IPO had been oversubscribed by 5.4 times.

The company planned to invest RM48 million from internally-generated funds to develop a safari park, slated to commence operations by year-end.

Among its ongoing projects are Arabian Bay Resort, the safari park and Taman Indera Sempurna 2.

The company said it is undertaking a RM735 million gross development value project, known as Global Heritage, to develop up to 1,070 units of themed resort villas and a five-star, 273-suite boutique hotel over 46.134 hectares.

In a statement today it said the resort villas, sold on a sale-and-leaseback option strategy, will feature distinctive architectural designs based on international themes.

Its Head of Public and Investors Relations Nasiruddin Nasrun said the development of Global Heritage - the company's first high value project in BGRC - is in tandem with the group's growing profile as a hospitality operator and property developer in the east coast.

"We aim to not only increase our accommodation capacity in BGRC, but also attract high-end visitors to our theme park attractions and comprehensive conference and exhibition facilities," he added.

Global Heritage is targeted for completion by 2018 in stages.

"The sale-and-leaseback strategy gives property investors the option to buy and lease their luxury villas back to BGRC," the company said.

Sentoria's IPO raised RM51.6 million in proceeds for the group.

Sentoria said RM27.7 million would be allocated for working capital, RM11.2 million for repayment of bank borrowings, RM9.0 million for the purchase of property, plant and equipment and the balance RM3.7 million, to defray listing expenses.

By Bernama