Despite talk of a recession, the Malaysia property scene is still buoyant with many people wanting to buy homes, especially in the city centre and in Johor.
HomeGuru.com.my country manager Steven Tan said there is a lot of interest among overseas investors to buy homes in Malaysia via the Malaysia My Second Home programme, especially in places like Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and Johor.
“As for Penang, the trend is different as many locals are snapping up properties there, mostly luxury condos,” Tan said in an interview with Business Times.
He added that another emerging trend in the Penang property market was that in recent months, there has been a lot of interest among Singapore investors to snap up heritage buildings on the island.
“You will be surprised that after Malaysians and Singaporeans, the third most visits we get for our website are the Europeans,” he said.
On HomeGuru’s recently concluded survey, in which some 2,800 people were interviewed on the local property market, Tan said 63 per cent of the respondents felt that properties across the board in Malaysia were expensive.
The survey also revealed that 78 per cent of the respondents felt that bungalows were the most expensive type of property. Tan added that some 18 per cent of the respondents also indicated that they were planning to invest overseas in the coming months.
HomeGuru is a Singapore company which has been in Malaysia for slightly under a year. Its 11-month-old website has about three million visitors a month, Tan said, adding the Malaysian HomeGuru website has over 10,000 agents with more than 70,000 properties to buy and sell.
HomeGuru is the second most popular property portal in the country, but it holds pole position in three other countries, namely Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.
Yes! I kept my own mission of the year, that is to make a vacation aboard, meaning must fly-one lar.
And, this round (after 6years of non-holiday excursion to oversea), it's a rather not-too-far & not-too-long vacation to our neighboring country, the Land of Smile's one of her many luring islands, Phuket.
It was 1998, if I'm can recall correctly, since last I visited this country, which was at the sourthern part of Thailand, Province of Surathani.
To be honest, I was a bit skeptical or rather already gotten ready in my mind, that, not to expect landing on clean, sophisticated environment, as what were experienced in my previous trip to this Tenderness country (as to what I personally felt for her & her people). I remembered clearly the dust that covered my face after arriving at Bangkok many years ago. The dirt left the whole piece of tissue paper darken when I wept it on around my face. And, just like Jakarta, be ready with the hustle bustle & not forgetting the distress of the Bangkok's traffic condition. The next thing is the humid climate we encountered during our stay in this city.
Wala! And to concise what a magnificent & impressiveness that was delivered to me from this 5days 4nites trip to this adorable island :
Its cleanliness ~ One word to describe it, amazing! Its a total contrary to what I have seen from my previous trip to this country. You will hardly see rubbish such as used plastic bags, cigarette buds, wrappers being dumped on the streets
Its humbleness ~Despite a lesser than the normal here in Phuket (reckon because of its tourist centered community), this brilliant tradition is rather well preserved here by the local folks.
Its Smiles ~ As per its self-explanatory of this country branding by other nations in the world, its a guaranteed legacy quality embraced by the locals
Its popularity ~ heard many many times on her name from friends, relatives & acquitances and also the competition prizes for Phuket. Now I really salute to how overwhelming the response from worldwide to choose this humble Island as everyone's favourite vacation destination ! You know what I'm saying when you see how many flights & avian company involved to & fro the island's airport. Our own local islands tour do not seems to be able to compete with Phuket's ! Massage parlor~ Huh? Oh ya.. you bet ! They offer variety of services & packages with if not cheap, then fair prices. You may think there's a lot found within Klang Valley, but at there, you can find the numbers make them the winners if you compare with their 24hr convenience shop like 7-11 , ehm say, in a ratio of 5(massage parlor) to 2(7-11 or other franchised brand) !
The beaches ~ well, need not to say much, anyone who'd been there knows they are much charming, cleaner, clearer & stretch longer in length compare to our PD beach or any other found along the East coast of Penisular Malaysia. Okay, enough ~ share with you the pics and I hope you do enjoy them. Sawasdee.
Dun ya think this resembling a sensitive part of us?
His Majesty is as photogenic as seen during the era of 1970s~1980s
In another words, this message written in Chinese simply try to convey a message saying "Sincerely like to help you transfer money from your pocket to mine" ^.^
The view of a lady embracing his male partner looking over the sea is where you normally see it from a Bollywood movie, very scenic, so I snapped it.
Some photos snapped at Bangla Street :
Didnt know the Siamese is a big fan of these creatures. The statue is slightly greater in height from normal human's :
The above is one of my favourite snaps
A very harmony contrast of both human-human & human-Mother Nature
I received praises, or at least admiration from frens on the above. Yup, its one of my favorite snaps from this trip
And, lastly but not least, in case you find this is what you long been waited for (observe the very first service), feel free to dial the contact no. mentioned in this ads :
Apple Fanboys & FanGirls, Fly to HK now... Tomorrow is the birth date for iPad 2 in this Oriental Pearl isle.
Its considered cheaper than i Pad 1 , 16GB model cost HK$3,888
Have a read on this article from micgadget.com (Made In China), it's a pre-launching (gray market-lah tu...) incredible market demand & fantastic price found over Hong Kong & the mainland China.
Steve Jobs did not announce an official release date for the iPad 2 in Hong Kong, but residents can buy them at retail – for a premium, just two days after the iPad 2 launches in the U.S. You will be shocked, a 16GB Wi-Fi model costs about $7,900 Hong Kong Dollars (around $1014) in the gray market, that’s about twice the U.S. price!!!
UPDATE: Video! And more information!
It is perfectly normal to see this in Hong Kong. Last year, the iPhone 4 and iPad were sold to local Apple fanboys at crazy prices in the gray market, since fanboys wanted to get the latest Apple gadget at the soonest. Just like always, vendors in the bustling gadget market in Hong Kong’s Sin Tat Plaza (先達廣場), known colloquially as the ‘Mobile Phone Mall’, are promising to bring the latest Apple product, iPad 2, to early adopters. Since the iPad 2 will be available for sale in the U.S first, the retailers will only have to import the iPads from America.
Amazingly, a retailer, Mr. Lo, who is the ‘master’ of the gray market in Hong Kong, who distributed hundreds to thousands of iPhone 4s and iPads to China’s gray market last year, has already received 200 orders before the launch, and he has prepared eight couriers in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles to hop on planes to Hong Kong after securing about 200 iPads and he will get the device to eager consumers by March 13, that’s today. And he did it.
Mr. Lo is preparing to distribute the iPad 2s to pre-ordered customers, early in the morning when luggages of iPad 2s arrived his store.
An employee opening up a luggage, which contains up to 40 boxes of iPad 2s.
What’s the selling price? Well, it’s insane. See below for the price tags.
iPad 2 with Wi-Fi (Black)
16GB: HKD$7,980 (about $1025)
32GB: HKD$8,980 (about $1153)
64GB: HKD$9,980 (about $1280)
iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G (Black)
16GB: HKD$9,680 (about $1243)
32GB: HKD$10,680 (about $1371)
64GB: HKD$11,880 (about $1525)
If you want a white version, you need to add HKD$1500-2000 (about $192-256) for every models. We are more shocked when we see the prices for the smart cover and HDMI adapter. Prices below.
It is really difficult to understand why the Hong Kongers want to secure an early iPad 2 for hefty premiums. Mr. Lo, the famous guy who first sold hundreds of iPhone 4 and iPad in the gray market, said customers have put down HKD$1,000 (about $128) deposit for each iPad 2 before the launch, and if there are some customers who could not accept the price they are offering now, the deposit will be refunded and the device will be reserved for late-comers. He has three special customers, one paid HKD$130,000 (about $16,684) for 10 iPads, other two are from the mainland China, one purchased 20 iPads and another ordered 50 iPads. When he was asked why customers are willing to spend so much money for an iPad 2, he said:
“Apple fanboys are willing to pay our prices to have the iPad 2 earlier. That’s how we earn money.”
However, Mr. Lo has only managed to prepare 60 units of iPad 2 today, and most of them are Wi-Fi + 3G 64GB models, while there are only two ten white iPads. Since there is over a hundred orders to handle, Mr Lo is calling his couriers to try their best to get more stocks from U.S. This may be difficult since Apple’s online store is showing delays of up two to three weeks for the slate and everywhere is sold out.
Mr. Lo has prepared lots of 64GB models! Why? Local Apple fanboys do not care about the prices or the storage capacity, they just want to get whatever the retailer has in stock, and since selling the Wi-Fi + 3G 64GB models will let the retailers to earn more profits, so that’s why Mr. Lo chose to import the high-end models.
Customers are informed to pick up their iPad 2s early in the morning, around 7-8am. Mr. Lo is the only retailer distributing iPad 2 at that time, all other vendors were not yet awake.
The guy above, Chen, is an App Developer. Here’s what he said, “Since iPad 2 features HDMI output, we can project its image to an external display for demo purpose, and at the same time, I can enjoy using an iPad 2 sooner than anyone else.“
Mr. Lo and his employees were busy distributing the iPad 2s and counting money…
Of course, the iPad 2 is not only selling at crazy price in Hong Kong, we took a look at Chinese online shopping site, Taobao, and the stores have set six price points, ranging from RMB¥5,200 to RMB¥8,200 (about $790 – $1246). That’s cheaper than Hong Kong’s gray market!
A Taobao vendor selling the iPad 2 online.
However, we are not sure if Taobao sellers are really selling a real iPad 2 to customers…. What’s more, we checked out Zhongguanchun, the most popular electronics shopping market in Beijing, and the vendors are ready to offer the iPad 2 on March 13, starting at RMB¥7,000 (about $1065) for the base model. Chinese consumers are required to put down RMB¥500 (about $76) deposit to make a reserve. Lots of Chinese Apple fanboys will get one, however, some may not. A female customer, Fang, said:
“It’s too expensive, I didn’t expect the vendors to offer this price, it’s over my budget! They are earning big profits from this!”
And a local Apple fanboy, Yang, said:
“I’m used to this. When Apple releases a new product, the vendors here will surely mark up the price. Since there is no date set for China release, we should patiently wait for Apple’s announcement and not visiting the gray market to get the ‘unlicensed’ product. The sales of the iPhone 4 in China is a good example!”
It is weird to see Apple not offering the iPad 2 to Hong Kong and China on March 25, while other 26 countries are getting it. We are guessing the problem is due to the gray market and scalpers in Hong Kong and China, since many people were reselling iPhone 4 for profits, especially in Hong Kong and Beijing.
Mr. Lo holding a white iPad 2. Cool!
Meanwhile, people who got an iPad 2 could sell the device to the gray market, starting from HKD$6,000 (about $770). Anyone doing this? If you are in Hong Kong, feel free to visit Mr. Lo’s store, G-World Mobile, located at:
F56, 1/F, Sin Tat Plaza, 83 Argyle Street, Mong Kok, Hong Kong
