Any advice for a guy considering changing from condo to a landed property?
My current place is fetching good price, but landed also costing a lot.
But I'm afraid that in the long run, the price appreciation of landed will be more than my condo. Then it'll be harder for me to finance the upgrade.

But isn't the current price of landed properties unrealistically high?
I'm afraid of commiting to one only to have the value drop while I continue to service the high loan.

People buying doesn't means its always a good thing. In fact, it's the non-stop buying that is causing the price to goes up so much.
I see that most buyers are speculators, just buy buy buy then hope to sell for a good return.
But even when there's more supply than demand, they keep on raising their price to cover for the loan interest.

Don't have landed property now.
Are you a RE agent? From Penang?
PM me if you are.

I've been to the E&O area... very nice place. Not for a salaryman like me. And I also think that many of the buyers there are not from Penang, or even Malaysia (I could be wrong).

Anyone knows what to look for when refurbishing an old house? Leaking roof? What else?
Also, any idea on how much it generally cost for refurbishing?

To cyongyong, thanks for the lookout so far

Really? That seems to be a fair price. But can you go into the details a bit?
Leaking roof: The repair you meant is that they seek out the faulty part of the roof and repair it or replace everything?
Reinforced concrete: How to know if needed?
Wiring, Piping: Again, tear out all the old ones and replaced with new?
Termites: Replace wooden part of the house? Or putting in the preventive measures?

Seems like quite a lot for below 10K....

Which makes things difficult for me.
I'm looking at some pretty old houses right now, need an estimation on how much needed before I can commit to it.
It would be disastrous to purchase an old house only to discover that I cannot finance the repair

I'm buying for own stay.
The place is in Island Glades. It's an original condition house, with timber flooring.
I have about 100K to fix up the place.

I'm no expert, but perhaps you can look into low cost flat at strategic location. That might offer a good rental yield. Maybe.

Rental yield for landed property has always been bad in Penang. Only slightly higher than apartment/condo.
Rental yield for apartment/condo used to be okay, but not anymore. The price of highrise has increased too much for the rent to cover, much less make a return out of it.

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Added on February 22, 2011, 12:33 pmThe places you chose are close to the factories, and are pretty high in demand. I would say a landed property there right now is from 700K to 800K.
For small apartments, I think the price is around 200K to 300K.
Newer apartments > 1000sqf, should be above 350K.

Good time to invest? I don't know.

This post has been edited by xecton: Feb 22 2011, 12:33 PM

Which is what makes me confused about the property value in Penang.
Taking D'Piazza as an example, you have a not so good highrise (my opinion, no offense) at a quite good location.
But majority of the units there empty, and very highly are waiting to be sold.
If the supply is high, then logically the price should be low. But it's not.
I suppose the sellers are able to service the loan, at probably about 1K/month.

Oh, I heard that some are already rented out to foreign cheap labours.

I haven't been inside the house yet, but it definately is in Island Glades. Perhaps the agent was mistaken.

never said it's a new house...