September 28, 2009

My property investment story_continued2

Although I made a mess of my first property investment, using the same housing loan, I managed to make a bit of money after holding another property for a short time of 3 years. In the same year I bought my home (it is more than just a house), I also bought another property which was an apartment. It was sold at a 'special' controlled price as the land in which the apartment was built is owned by the State Economic Development Corporation where it is situated. Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor (PKNS) or the Selangor Economic Development Corporation is a well-known entity in Malaysia, which has been developing township since 1980s. Being on its panel of lawyers since 2003, we have the privileges of getting to know a few of their 'inside' information including where is their next development area within the state of Selangor.




I am not that BIG of a player to really buy or create a landbank near any of the land of the PKNS has targeted to be developed, so, I did the next best thing, buying their properties. In mu case, I bought one of the properties which they built through a joint-venture partner which has developed the office which I occupied between 2000 to 2007. I am currently occupying another rental unit of theirs but during that 7 years, my current office was still a squatters area. My old office was just 500 square feet and I was courting the developer for a piece of their legal work. Until now, I failed at getting any legal work from them, especially that particular PKNS's joint venture development company's owner (the real owner behind the well-known political connection the company has) has a daughter which is a lawyer (just down the road actually).

Again, I did the next best thing. I befriend the owner of the development company. I now know the owner, his heir apparent and even his trusted business partner. My legal firm has even recommended the companies' properties to prospective tenants including to banks. You can always gain something from another business owner regardless whether they use your service or not as a lawyer or not. So, in my personal capacity, I bought an apartment which they were building in 2004. My wife then recommended it to her sister. The apartment complex, which comes with a pool is very much high-density, was completed in 2006. We bought it at RM72,000-00/USD$20,600-00  (the special price I mentioned earlier) and tried to rent it out. I bought it using a 100% housing loan and I booked the apartment by paying only RM500-00/USD$145-00.

When we got the key to it in 2006, we managed to get it rented out to a students with a few of his friends. As we signed the tenancy with the student's parents, we thought it was a good deal. It was not. Their son failed the short course he took in the nearby university and we were left with 3 untrustworthy friends who were so unreliable in rental payments. We asked them to go out, discussed our options and finally decided to sell the unit. As a lawyer, I was actually fuming as I failed to enforce a tenancy agreement I have drafted and executed. It shows how incomplete Malaysia current law on tenancy is (which is within the ambit of the National Land Code 1965). The law left too much for a tenancy to be disputed. You cannot even evict a tenant properly without having to go to court of law. In the United States and certain countries, there are sheriffs and bailiffs whom you can rely on to help you evict your tenant.

That was all made okay when we managed to secure a buyer for the house for RM99,000-00/USD$28,285-00 after investing nearly RM6,000-00/USD$1,700-00 of our own money for stamp duty, marketing and . In short, we made a profit of nearly RM19,000-00/USD$5,400-00 within 3 years. That made us a 'flipper', which are those who buys and then sell the property for profit, after holding it for a very short time. Flipper are usually those who buys second-hand property, do it up and then sell it, which is very much unlike us, but I believe it made us nearly the same as them. When I made that much money, it made me a believer in property investment and wanted to invest more....



7 comments:

test said...

Wah usually for apartment in PJ area is at least RM 130,000 (with losta mess,hole, leak etc) to RM 150,000 for sale. Sad case about tenant if not, it can could provide good source income for u.

U should read book on Azizan Ali book about property

Jorji said...

invest more?

boss.. neo damansara at damansara perdana, retail,office and service apartment. phase 1 and 1A all sold out. phase 2 will be launch on December..but retail unit for the service apart are now open for sale.
very good location for investment.

just sharing some info :P

Legal Cat said...

Spectre - Have all his book and his company is going to be my publisher for MY BOOK!!!

j - Thanks for the tip...liquidating skrg ni tapi good to know...

property investmt news said...

good blog,come check mine out at propertyinvestmentnewspd1.blogspot.com
thanks for the info!

property investment news said...

really nice blog,thanx alot for the info,please come and take a look at my property investment news blog at propertyinvestmentnewspd1.blogspot.com

David hogard said...

A property investor may decide to use this window of opportunity to release some of that equity realized in the value of the property, to use for additional property investment. However, the property investor is less likely to use that capital released during a rising market. Instead, the landlord will wait until the market has re-stabilized itself or experiencing a decline. At this point, they will then use this window of opportunity to purchase lower priced property and the circle continues. That is why property investors are in it for the long term and why they see the market as being profitable to them in all conditions. And when you consider that property prices only need to increase by an average of 4.4% year on year, it is easy to see why this type of investment is so achievable.


http://theproperty.blogstream.com/v1/pid/423195.html

Unknown said...

Great advice and things to watch out for when selecting a property to rent out. I find it challenging as well when it comes to seeing out new tenants and it is always a challenge when with background checks and folks that have a good history don't always carry that forward into the future. good Luck!!

Sean McCrory @ Graham Commercial Real Estate Consultants

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