New Tenant In Today

A quick update with much thankfulness that one of the empty rooms in my SD Tiara apartment is taken up after almost 3 months of vacancy.  There were many offers to take up before but without firm action of paying a deposit to secure the room.  Finally this tenant made a decision to move in and informed me 2 days ago.

Another note that I am  very thankful for is that my current tenant for the small room is a very clean guy.  Young and single and scrupulously clean.  Every weekend he cleans up his room and the entire house!
I am so pleasantly surprised.
I am thankful and attracting my next (clean) tenant for the middle room!

Messy Room Left Behind By Tenant

One of my tenants left and I was not able to be around to get the keys from him before he left.
Luckily I have the spare room keys, and this is what I found when I entered the room.

And he has left the country for good and do not plan to come back, but there are remnants of books, clothes, 1 old computer bag, exercise dumb-bells etc.  No choice, J and I quickly cleaned up as best as we could.  At the end we manage to throw out most of the useless stuff, packed the books in a bag to keep, (in case any new students can use them) and even mopped the floor and cleaned the room.

Ready for new tenant to take over, hopefully a clean person this time.

Regalia Studio - Rented!

After 15 days, our Regalia unit is rented out!  Expatriate couple, 1 working near Subang Parade - therefore would be taking the KTM commuter to work.
During these 2 weeks we got many calls from property agents active at renting out Regalia units.  We also had many viewings but no takers.  Thankfully, today, the couple paid deposit and signed the tenancy agreement for a year.  Thank you to all agents who had tried to help us.  We hope that the tenants find comfort and convenience in this little apartment.

Regalia Studio for Rent

We have had quite a number of challenges trying to make our apartment a comfy place to stay, mainly because both J and I had been too busy.  This is also our 2nd experience getting a brand new unit with VP handed over to us, the first being many, many years ago when we weren't property investors.  There were so many things to do.
So the progress has been slow and we were taking our own time, which is not a good idea for property investors.  But while we set it up we often take the kids to enjoy the pool there - combining investment agenda with personal agenda, ahem, not professional at all.

Enjoying the Skypool

However on 31 May, we finally got everything more or less in order.

J repainted the Ikea table with walnut wood stain

The Ikea bookshelf makes a nice separator.

Washer and dryer included.

Replacing Fallen Kitchen Tiles

In my previous post Cleaning apartments for rent, one of the apartments had the kitchen tiles falling off the edge of the kitchen worktop, both at the sink and also at the cooker hob.
Obviously this was because of the poor workmanship of cementing the tiles because there were places where the cement was not applied - causing hollow tiles.

At first I thought the job was as simple as buying some glue or cement and sticking the tiles back.  However, J looked at it and thought that the existing patchy cement needed to be removed first before applying new cement, so this was a job beyond him.

Luckily, I had a contact for kitchen cabinets specialist, and I sent the above pictures to them to describe the problem.  They responded that they can fix it, provided I had all the tile pieces.  It turned out that some tiles, after they dropped off, were somehow missing as well :-(

Finally we went to look for the same type of tiles and found a piece by chance.  It wasn't exactly the same, but it would do. After getting the tile, we arranged for the contractor to come replace the tiles, it took quite a few hours as the "sifu" was very patiently drilling away the old dried cement and cutting the tiles to the right size.  I would post the finished pictures here but I had forgotten to take the picture.
Update:  Posted the pictures here below:

The tile colour is slightly different but that is OK

I am relieved that this problem was fixed finally and the workmanship was good too.

SSPN

Following the advice on KC Lau's book "Top Money Tips for Malaysians",  I went to open an SSPN account to maximize the savings for my child's education and take advantage of the tax relief of 2012.

SSPN form

The application and savings can be submitted in any Maybank or CIMB.  So I applied for mine at a CIMB branch.  You also need to bring cash, a copy of the parent's Mykad and a copy of the child's birth cert/Mykid, and ask for the SSPN form at the bank for filling up.
After the deposit has been made, in a few weeks time I received my SSPN card with the designated account numbers.  To get a statement from SSPN, just view the e-statement from the PTPTN website.

Fixing Curtain Railings

CNY 2nd Day and what do we do?
Continue working at the apartment, kids all in tow.

I want to highlight how good dear hubby J is, he fixed the curtain railings by himself, including the hard to do corners. We managed to put up curtains for one side of the windows.  Still need to buy 2 more pieces for the sliding door sides.
The picture is just a sneak peak to test the curtains' length and the strength of the railings. I will try to get more interesting colors to blend and give some contrast to the place.
Besides the curtains we fixed the bookshelf to the wall so that it will not topple over.  

Cleaning Up Apartments for Rent

It's the eve of CNY eve.  And J is on leave because we have 2 apartments to set up.  One of my tenants left on 1 Feb and we are cleaning up and repairing some stuff.  The other apartment is new.  So when my hubby suddenly has the mood to do things, I'd better take advantage of it.
Even if it meant working from 10am till 8pm today.
10am: went to bank to settle some technical stuff
11am: went to another bank, change new notes for the CNY angpows.
12pm: Had sandwiches for lunch to save time.
12.30pm:  went to Celcom branch, I needed to change my simple voice plan to a more comprehensive plan that included data access.  Not to mention get a new phone with the package.
1pm: went to 1st apartment, set up the bookshelves and half set up the bed frame.  Left unfinished because of missing parts, probably left in store room at home.

Sneak peek of what is to come!

4pm: went to 2nd apartment, vacuumed and swept and mopped while J repaired a broken cupboard door, a broken shelf and replaced broken pipes, changed light bulbs.  And still cannot finish because now we have quite a major problem of kitchen tiles falling off.  Need to get a kitchen cabinet guy to help fix and now we are smack into CNY holidays.  Looks like this will take some time but I hope to finish this asap to be ready for next tenants!

Moving Stuff

We had a busy day today moving some stuff from our home to the new apartment that we wanted to furnish.  Hubby is so great, he just asked me to borrow the Arena and we together with the kids move the stuff by ourselves.  It started to drizzle but luckily stayed like that, not much heavier.

I followed behind the furniture car, we moved the Ikea Klippan sofa and an Ikea bedframe.

When we got there, the guard told us we were not supposed to be doing moving on a Sunday.  However hubby explained to him that that is the only day we could borrow the little pickup, and after some friendly exchanges they let us go.  It was no small feat moving the stuff just between us. Plus the sofa cover was soaked wet.  So in the end we removed the cover to take it home to wash, thankfully it protected the sofa underneath.

The weird things we do as landlords.....