Full House at Domain

Finally, finally, after the improvements, the last tenant booked my apartment's last room for rent.  It was empty for about 5 months!  Lesson well learnt and well remembered.

Long-awaited Tenant

I think I fell into the trap of complacency as a landlord.  Gone were the days when property rental is hot and fast, and I was too slow to note it.  Indeed, I was puzzled why viewer after viewer rejected taking my room, and then I consulted my fellow blogger, investor and good friend at Property Waltz.

True, the rental market has slowed down for that area due to emerging competition, but she also pointed out a few points when she saw pictures of the room that I sent her.
1. Walls unpainted and dull
2. Bed too close to window
3. Curtains not put up  (I already bought new curtain but I didn't put it up, wanted to let the new tenant have 1st hand new curtain).

Before the improvements

So I listened to her room improvement pointers and here are the results:

Add a picture to brighten the walls

Repainted the wall and moved the bed

Moved the Ikea wardrobe so one wall doesn't look so empty

Hopefully, I am that much closer to attracting my next clean and responsible tenant.

Renesial Leong's Buy, Sell or Hold Seminar

I'm very thankful to have obtained a sponsored ticket to my sifu's seminar to be able to listen to her again in this current economic situation.  She looked just the same as 5 years ago - a happy, blessed person who has abundance of everything and is spending a lot of time doing charity work. She urges all of us to donate 5% of our passive income monthly to charity.  So many people around the world now need our help and if we are blessed, we then should give some of our wealth to help others.

Renesial in action

OK, back to her sharing today at the seminar.
In our current environment we face certain challenges and opportunities.
Challenges:
1. Rising costs of goods - fuel hike, electricity tariff, withdrawal of subsidies, GST implementation
2.  Rising costs of land - land price, borrowing costs by developers, compliance costs etc
3. Oversupply of certain types of properties - continuous building at neck-breaking speed in certain areas.
4. GST will increase costs of doing business in Malaysia, creating competitive pressure by other lower costs countries.

GST implications:
1. If buying commercial property offplan from developer and the completion stages falls after 1 April 2015, those completion stages will be subject to GST.
2. It is not clear whether rents of commercial properties are subjected to GST or not.  Landlords need to be aware when renewing tenancies that will continue over the GST effective period.

Opportunities:
1. Malaysia's ETP that aims to make our per capita income from US7k to US15k per annum.
2. Population has hit 30million in Feb 2014.  Good % of Gen-X and Gen-Y who will demand housing and business properties.
3. Greater KL will hit 10million population by 2020.
4. Low unemployment rates, best highway infrastructure among countries South East Asia.

In summary, given current situation, now is the time to either buy, sell or hold, depending on our individual current cashflow and holding power :-)

Tenant in, Tenant Out

I am really thankful that my tenant of one of the rooms, practically got replaced on the same day: one moving out and one moving in today.
The current tenant actually gave me very short notice for his leave.  But because he has always been making payments late in the month, I am almost thankful to let him go. Don't get me wrong, among all the previous tenants, he was quite responsible in doing his share of the work and better than the nightmare master room tenant that I had.
Anyway, today he handed over the keys. J and I were busy cleaning up the room and doing general repairs.  J replaced the broken washing machine drain hose which was leaking all over the yard, and I cleaned the yard.  We also rearranged the TV and dining table to spruce up the apartment.  I bought new mattress protectors for the new tenants.  The middle room will also get a new curtain as the old blue one was missing, through change of tenants in so many years.
The new tenant arrived from the airport later today, viewed the room and confirmed move in the same day.  So luckily we had cleaned the room as best as we could.  All in a day's work.

I am sending out good vibes that a good tenant will be found soon for the middle room as well.

Renesial Leong's Mini-seminar 9th August 2014

I chanced upon my Sifu's facebook page announcing 100 sponsored tickets to this seminar today.   I am not sure if she will share very much in 3 hours, but I am always grateful to her for having taught the right strategies, and I am where I am today, on the way to financial freedom, because of her.
So I would want to see her again.
If you want to claim your sponsored ticket, you must make sure that you can attend on that day, so that you don't deprive other people of the ticket.
Visit: http://www.property-queen.com/

Upgrading Furnishings

I have now held the Domain apartment for 5 years and some of the furniture are old and required replacement.  The first thing that had to go was the Haier aircond.  From day 1, the aircond was didn't feel like it was cool. So I checked out websites for newer aircond models that are affordable, and landed on Pensonic from lazada.com.my, the cheapest of the lot.  Unfortunately, they didn't have stock and had to reject my order.
Then, Hubby J went to hunt for a unit for us.  We finally settled on Electrolux 1HP for RM780 from TBM.  Actually I just checked again now, Sen Heng is giving an online deal for only RM750, and RM899 plus installation.

Next is to update the poor old sofa, that has been battered over the last 5 years, even 1 of the back cushions are missing.  So I bought a 2nd hand sofa from a private seller, which I hope will last at least 10 years.

I'm thinking to make the apartment as clean and comfy as possible to continue to attract good tenants who would take care of their rooms and the apartment.

Tenant Packed and Left

My real estate agent called and told me that our tenant at Regalia suddenly left his keys and access cards with him, because his wife got food poisoning and they are returning to their home country.
And so after 10 months of rental, the tenancy ended abruptly and we never got to meet them at all as everything was done by the agent, and they were good paymasters and hardly complained about anything.
Now 2 weeks after being informed that they left, the agent told me that he got us another tenant.  I am so thankful because we had such a good tenant, who took care of the place well, and now we got another tenant almost immediately.  Hoping that this tenant will be good and easy too.

Hari Mengecat Sedunia (World Painting Day)

I am borrowing this theme from my blogger and property investor friend, who replied to my comment on her page.  Hari Mengecat Sedunia, hehe!

Her post and comments

Hubby and I also painted one of our rooms today.  After the tenant moved out, we found it almost in dilapidated conditions.

Before painting, but after scraping off the old paint

Not sure how tenant could live in such dirty conditions

Using the long 3-day weekend (Thaipusam on Friday), we cleaned up as best as we could, and spent Sunday painting the room.  This is my first experience painting.  Hard work, but quite satisfactory.

Curtains washed and walls painted

Vacuumed and cleaned even under the bed