10197 Fire Brigade officially discontinued. RIP 31st Dec 2013. Of course production of the set would have stopped months before that... Having said that, you can still find it in the open market at decent prices... Don't think you can get it below RM700 anymore but RM800-900 would be a good price now me thinks.
With Modular Buildings, unless you have deep pockets my advice to you is don't look back! Buy what's available now and make this your starting point in your Modular Buildings collection.

My guess is 10211 Grand Emporium will be discontinued end of this year. So if you need to plan this will be my suggested list in order of priority:
10197 Fire Brigade (must buy in 1st half of 2014)
10211 Grand Emporium (must buy before 3rd quarter of 2014)
10218 Pet Shop (Preferably start shopping for it in last quarter of 2014)
Once you have the above you can take a breather and slowly buy the newer Modular Buildings one by one each year if you can tahan... lol!
It will reach Malaysia, don't worry about that part. Worry about the price only, at over 2k pieces this is Modular Buildings territory...

I am getting this set for sure, one set can complete an iconic Simpsons family collection already.
Damn!! My 2014 shopping list suddenly got much longer! Initially quite safe with only the 10243 Parisian Restaurant in my list. Then heard about the new trains and now this!!
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My Groupon order also received this morning. Got a heart attack when I saw the "packaging"... I hope the boxes are in good shape, can't wait to inspect them later.
thks bro..i think thats excellent advice, never look back if just starting modulars. I been afol for a while, but only SW, always liked the modulars, but not enuff to buy....that changed when i saw Parisian Restaurant, somehow it just speaks to me, i love the details...so im going to start modulars as well, and will use your guide to start. GE and Petshop this year. (dont plan to get the fire brigade, cos its not appealing to me...seems bland next to parisian )