Property Investment Book by my good friend

I have always admired the spirit, tenacity and curious nature of my fellow property blogger at www.propertywaltz.com. She is willing to go out of her comfort zone to try new things and embrace life.  This week, her new book on property investments is published.
I am one of her fans who have pre-ordered her book and got a personalized autograph for it.
The book is simple to read, of a great size to carry around, and I love the colour printings and many photos shared by the author.
If you are a beginner in property investments, I would recommend this book for all the basic knowledge and calculations.
Well done, Anie, you are an inspiration to all young aspiring investors.  Dreams do come true!

Apartment Hunting 2015

One of my favorite past-times, apartment hunting.
Checking out this lovely old apartment. I'm excited and over the moon again!

This unit has not much to boast about, but one must be able to see the potential to turn into something worthwhile with some cleaning and touch-up.

Rented Out Fast and Furious

Below chronology of events and I consider myself so very lucky.  I count my blessings.

31/03/2015 - Letter notification from developer on vacant possession
16/04/2015 - Due to work commitments, unable to get to handover office until today to settle balances and get the keys.

And then it is a long waiting period for defects rectification and doing nothing because.... CCC (certificate of completion and compliance) is not ready.
From VP to CCC - 3 months - paying the bank installments and bleeding.

01/07/2015 - Informed by one of the real estate agents that the CCC is ready.  Agents got the news faster than I receive the letter from developer.....

04/07/2015 - Ordered furniture to be delivered on 11/07

11/07/2015 - Exasperating!  Furniture lorry did not come.  Due to the coming Raya, too many orders, didn't get prioritized.  Meanwhile, lights installed.

16/07/2015 - Took leave specially to wait for furniture delivery, luckily it arrived.
                   - Discovered more defects, complained to developer for rectification.

27/07/2015 - Appointment for defects rectification (drainage problems).
                    - One super-agent came to see my unit.  Super hard-working.
                    - Gave him 1 set of key as he has arranged viewing the next day.

28/07/2015 - 04/08/2015  Viewings, viewings, viewings, but no takers.
05/08/2015 -  Viewing and rented!
06/08/2015 - Tenant moved in!

All this thanks to one Super-Agent!  Fantastic.
From CCC to rental - 5 weeks!  Fast and Furious!

Keys Handover

My sifu, Renesial Leong, once said, there is no excitement greater than when you hold the keys to a newly acquired unit and you open the door.  Well said.

And now, sending the vibration to the universe that I could attract my next good tenant asap.

Facelift at my Unit

Due to inconsistent rent payments, I gave my tenants at one unit around 3 months' of notice and asked them to move out.  After they left, the condition of the apartment unit looks very shabby and had to be repainted and repaired before I could attract new tenants.  This is not the fault of the old tenants, in fact they had been very tolerant of the unit condition when they moved in 2 years back.

The worst part was the peeling paint from the balconies and the less-than-white ceilings.

So, a facelift had to be given to the unit and I managed to get the painters' contact from my blogger and property investor friend, propertywaltz.

Here are the after-results.  Wall colour changed from white to beige.

Looks so much brighter and cheerful now with the new colour.

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

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.