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!

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.

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.

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 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.

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.....

Birds Problem at Apartment

If you have birds creeping under your roof tiles and building nests and doing business there, what do you do?  I had a tenant who solved this problem for me, he called his own handyman contractor to climb through the plaster ceiling, cleaned the place and put wire mesh at the openings so that birds cannot fly in anymore.
Although I had to pay for the services, the problem was solved for me once and for all.

Bird droppings causing discoloration of ceiling

Hole cut into plaster ceiling to access under roof

Wire mesh added to prevent entry

Roof hole closed and repainted

Ikea Malaysia Collects Used Light Bulbs

A few years ago, I learnt that we should not throw away used batteries and light bulbs like normal trash because the chemicals that they contain will cause soil and water pollution.
So I started to collect light bulbs, unable to throw them away and unable to do anything because I did not know who would recycle light bulbs.
Then just last month, while taking my used batteries to Ikea, I saw that there was another bin for used light bulbs.  I was very pleased.
So today, after work, I took my collection and went to Ikea.  I was also buying some new light bulbs.

Ikea Sparsam 11W light bulbs cost RM18.90 for 3 pieces, which is about RM6.30 per piece, and that is quite inexpensive compared to various other brands that I use.  So for the new light furnishings at Regalia, I will be using these light bulbs.  Inexpensive and you can take them back to Ikea when there are burnt out.

Regalia Sneak Peek

Finally got the keys to our Regalia studio apartment.  It came partially furnished, so this is the 'Before' pictures. I hope to post the 'After' pictures really soon, but it depends on how fast the developer contractor can rectify the defects.

Comes with induction cooker and hood

Kitchen cabinet

Love the bright unit!

Walking round the gardens

Minor Repairs

A little update on my SD Tiara apartment, where the master bedroom was rented out last month.  After the tenant moved in, he found minor problems with the bed (missing screws and one broken bed support plank) and on the water heater.
As landlord of residential properties, we can only be thankful that sometimes there are minor problems like these to be managed.  So today, J went to the apartment to fix the bed first.  We got the spare parts from Ikea, and the broken bed lade was screwed in with another piece of wood.  The whole procedure took less than an hour.

I am glad that J is such a handyman,  he said it is due to some subject called Kemahiran Hidup in secondary school.  Thank goodness for that.  So if you are a landlord, be prepared that there are some maintenance to be done, now and again.
Water heater remains to be fixed another day.

New Tenant In Domain

This is a post recording my gratitude that my old Japanese tenant moved out this morning, and a new tenant from moved in at night right away.
J and I went to the apartment to hand over the keys and collect the deposits and was flabbergasted to see the condition of the apartment.  It is so dirty!  The students don't clean up.  When my Thai tenant was there, it was so much better, because he acted as the housekeeper.

The apartment was messy like this

Even J, as a guy, couldn't stand the mess and dirt, he cleaned the toilet and mopped the floor. I threw out the trash, picked up the books and drawing tools from the floor, swept the floor and cleaned the kitchen sink.
It was amazing, that in the state that it was in yesterday when the prospective tenant came to view; he agreed to take the room.  Maybe, it was just the right timing and he had no other choice.
Whatever it is, after he settled in a bit, I am going to grant them a one-time maid service to thoroughly clean the apartment.  I think it is the least I can do to make the environment a little more bearable.

Photo used with permission from http://www.wiehanne.com/2009/03/05/talk-about-lazy-housemates/