I don't known why anyone is surprised that a studio unit in Cyberjaya cannot fetch RM 2.5k. I'm actually surprised that anyone thought that RM 2.5k was a norm and a sure-fire rental amount. Shaftsbury studios are just 460 sqft. At RM 2.5k, that's a RM 5.3/sqft rental, on par with the likes of Mont Kiara. That's a foolish price to pay, and equally so to expect as a owner, especially considering that buying the unit outright with a 90% margin loan, 30 years tenure would cost significantly less per month.

I do not doubt such units were actually rented out for the said amount, but setting it as a baseline price expectation is ridiculous. It was just not worth it, and that's proven by the rental drop.

There should still be some landed properties available for 1 million, or slightly below (RM9xxk) if you don't mind intermediate unit or very low density condo. SEG and LakePoint Resdience are two that spring to mind. I find SEG's Isle of Karames interesting, although it's not landed, it's not like a typical condo either.

This post has been edited by cedm: Aug 21 2017, 01:31 PM

I've been reading this thread from the beginning but I kept refraining myself from commenting as this discussion, like every other CJ thread unfortunately, always ends up being trolled and spoiled. At times, I wonder if there can ever be mature and honest discussions on this forum. Well, I'll give it a go and share my perspective on CJ as a buyer for own stay.

First of all, for those who don't know me, I was not born nor raise in this country, rather I have lived and worked in many countries, mostly developed nations or oversea territories of said nations, so my expectations and preferences can be quite different from the local population. Also, I have been living in Malaysia, KV exclusively, for 10+ years now, so I'm quite familiar with the local standard of living.

The primary reason I chose to buy and stay in CJ is its uniqueness compared to the rest of the KV. For one, it's a planned township, and compared to the urban sprawling found elsewhere, that means a well designed network of roads that is both ample and diverse (i.e. not forced to drive back into a single road to get anywhere - yes I'm looking at you Puchong), gazetted green spaces and parks (nicely spread out and totaling 40% of the land area), and overall a balanced environment comprised of housing, offices and shops, without any factory (and neither car shop allowed to open next to a restaurant for instance - hard to enjoy a meal when the restaurant is sandwiched between two filthy shops -Hello Cheras, Puchong, PJ, ... pretty much any shop lots anywhere else). That alone sold me CJ. Finally a place that is well maintained and looked after.

I can understand the interest in older and more happening suburbs, with their many choices of restaurants, pubs and other hang out places -and I do enjoy doing there from time to time-, but gosh, how filthy and chaotic these can be! Horrible traffic to get in and out (with doubled or tripled-park vehicles to add insult to injury), shop lots poorly or not maintained at all, litter everywhere. Seems like nobody cares, or stopped caring a long time ago.

Most of the bad things people say about CJ, I actually consider them positive points. Ghost town? Great! It's quiet, no traffic jam, relaxing. Too many high rise? I actually prefer the convenience of condominiums over landed properties (which in Malaysia are designed in a way that one is forced to drive to do mundane tasks such as buying milk or having dinner out). No night life? I sleep early

The MNC, IT-centric businesses are icing on the cake for me as I work in this sector. By the way, I work in near KLCC, yet I chose to live in CJ. Just for the ones who think only people working in CJ would consider living in CJ. Just plain not true. I wouldn't swap my CJ condo for one located closer to my office. Distance is not the issue, commuting time is, and CJ is doing much better than one may think: MEX shrinks travel time to KL down to a similar level as living around Bukit Jalil (I know what I'm talking about, I used to drive BJ-KL every day, BJ can be even worse, as it is heavy traffic until you get onto the highway), and the ERL gets me to KL Sentral in under 20min.

I can't think of anything CJ is missing. Whatever may be is already under construction. It's been mentioned several times over already.

Typical statement from self-called property experts... If there's anything to stay away from, it's from such people and their delusional mindset, which happen to be very common on this forum as well. All these break-even rentals, positive cash flow, statements are such non-sense, it hurts to read that. If buying a property was cheaper than renting one, no one would bother to rent in the first place. Insisting on positive cash flow as the golden measurement for a good investment is ignoring that the property is an asset where the value lies.

Expecting the rental to cover or exceed one's loan repayment is expecting to have the cake and eat it too. A property left vacant doesn't not generate any income rental, yet it doesn't lose its value. The statement that you "can't even sell for any profit for the next 10 years" for the areas mentioned is bust by the official price house index released every year by the government: the average house price increased by ~5% in the past 3 years, and between 5-15% in the preceding 7 years. That's higher than any house loan rate, and easily cover any extra charges like management fees. Even adjusting these numbers for inflation over that 10 years period would still return a profit. There certainly some properties that struggle to increase in value, but calling entire areas unprofitable, that's phony.

I'm looking at the data provided by NAPIC. It's detailed down to districts. For Sepang, the numbers are:

Terrace House price index (2010=100)

2009: 95.8
2010: 100 (+4.4%)
2011: 121.7 (+21.7%)
2012: 137.6 (+13%)
2013: 150.7 (+9.5%)
2014: 162.3 (+7.7%)
2015: 172.5 (+6.2%)
2016: 186.5 (+8.2%)

I can't find High Rise data for Sepang. For Selangor as a whole, it's:

2009: 96.0
2010: 100.0 (+4.1%)
2011: 110.5 (+10.5%)
2012: 129.1 (+16.8%)
2013: 141.9 (+9.9%)
2014: 153.6 (+8.2%)
2015: 165.9 (+8%)
2016: 184.4 (+11.2%)

For KL center:

Terrace House:

2009: 89.4
2010: 100.0 (+11.9%)
2011: 117.7 (+17%)
2012: 126.8 (+8.4%
2013: 164.1 (+29.4%)
2014: 181.4 (+10.5%)
2015: 196.6 (+8.4%)
2016: 201.7 (+2.6%)

High rise:

2009: 94.5
2010: 100.0 (+5.8%)
2011: 115.7 (+15.7%)
2012: 136.8 (+18.2%)
2013: 155.8 (+13.9%)
2014: 162.1 (+4%)
2015: 174.0 (+7.3%)
2016: 187.8 (+7.9%)

I can't find the full dataset for year 2017 (only up to Q3), maybe it's not ready yet or my google skills are not up to the task... Anyway, it gives some us hard numbers to look at, and while it's not down to specific tonwships, it's better than the baseless statements from those property doomsday preachers.

Or, we can look at transacted property prices from website like brickz.my for specifics.

Some sample for Cyberjaya, Jan-Dec 2017, Median price:

* Neocyber: RM 270,000
* Garden residence: RM 1.3M
* Serin RM 455,000
* Cybersquare: RM 260,000
* SEG: RM 1.2M
* Hyve: RM 340,000
* The Arc: RM 340,000

I don't know how much these were selling for when VP... You guys can do the math if you want. But anyone owning these properties and renting them out (even at a "negative cash flow"), should still turn a profit upon selling 10 years down the road. A poor rental market like today's will still allow a landlord to rent a unit for more than half its loan repayment, therefore slashing in half the cost of ownership. I'd find it hard to believe that areas like KLCC, Cyberjaya, Seminyeh, etc. would see their property values drop in half over 10 years. Actually, I would be very surprised if such areas' price don't even kept up with inflation, let alone remain stagnant.

Am I supposed to believe your uninformed opinion instead?

That's strange. I wonder if it's a typo, I can't find any mention of a 2023 date anywhere else, least on the MRT official website. That The Star article doesn't mention any delay either. Seeing the advance of the construction on the southern end of the line (already building the stations), it doesn't seem another 3 years is required (I'm not sure how you come up with 4-5 years; we're 1+ week away from 2020 already).

As for Cyberjaya not surviving, I'm puzzled by your question. Don't you live in Cyberjaya? You should know better...

Not disagreeing with you on any of the points you raised, and I got no crystal ball nor insider knowledge on the MRT. It wouldn't be the first time such a project gets delayed, on the other hand the first MRT line got delivered 6 months ahead of schedule, so anything is possible. I would rather indeed wait for any official update, or other news outlet to report the same, rather than speculate.

As for Cyberjaya itself, it's still better off today as a place to live in than it used to be. We certainly have more choices for shopping and eating. It's a slow progress, but it's still progressing nonetheless. Too many units built too quickly, that's a fact, but the population is growing so they will eventually be filled in. I'm staying in the west end of Cyber, and lots have improved there these past few years: Tamarind square, SJKC, more family-oriented condos and villas, the hospital nearing completion, etc. Lots of positive developments.

This post has been edited by cedm: Dec 20 2019, 12:00 PM

LakeFront Residence actually. I'm mostly referring to SEG, LFR, LakePoint, Tamarind Sq, etc. when I say west end. Vega, Domain, etc. are mostly lower-end, rental focused I reckon, no much of an interest for me. Restaurant-wise, I hang around Tamarind, Dpulze, 3rd Avenue, Prima, Kanvas. Good stuff there.

I bought Cyber for own stay, knowing well how many condos were planned to be built, so it never bothered me. Dense developments also have their advantages: convenience of having everything close by. That's not quite true in Malaysia where everything seems to be designed to sell cars, but that's another story I guess.

I didn't hear about having MRT stations right in the middle of Cyber. I thought the original plan was for the MRT2 was to go straight to Putrajaya from Serdang, without going through 16 Sierra and Cyberjaya. I did read about trams linking Kajang, Putrajaya and Cyber though. That'd be better than nothing but I'm not holding my breath. Public transport isn't taken seriously in this country, somehow we need a 3rd national car....

Rental yields have definitely gone down. I bought a dual key unit for the very reason you highlight, it gives me flexibility if I need to rent it out (i.e. rent the unit as a whole, or the 3 bedrooms' and studio separately). I bought well within my means, so I don't have to worry about loan repayments, I could leave it vacant or take my time to sell it. I kept my options open and liabilities low.

This post has been edited by cedm: Dec 20 2019, 02:31 PM

My beef is with people who trash talk the project/location they bought when the yields doesn't match their unrealistic expectations. Like flipping for profit when the project just VP, or hope people will line up to rent at a price that covers both loan repayment and maintenance fees. As if doing property investment required no money and the only effort was to sign the SPA... All these auction units within months of VP are just about buyers' greed. Deep down they knew very well they couldn't afford them, but somehow thought money would fall out of the sky. These people are gamblers, not investors.