Hi Winners,
Thanks a lot for the input, racial issues are always thorny but with their policies and the fact that there is now an established middle class, the old days are pretty far away right now. They have as much as the minorities to lose if things goes south here.
With regards to being a landlord, rental over a lot of areas here are still bad as you already pointed out but its very much dependant on the location. It matters alot as well as the security and the environment plays a part in the consideration.
Rental yield aside, you can get places or even terraces for cheap still but these are not necessarily places you would want to live in especially with a young family. I have recently seen alot of SG cars as well in older estates like Perling as well as those ungated ones in Bukit Indah recently.
The different developments simply caters to different segments of the market. Those catering mainly to the local markets may see market share eroding as more foreigners start to come in which is why i saw a recent trend to copy the others and start to cater to this end of the market. Whether they succeed or not is a question mark.
Though there are a lot of developments, choice land with good proximity and amenities will always be in demand. Like i have said before, houses in Kulai are cheaper and in some cases much cheaper than in Johor, land plentiful yet i don't see loads of people going there for house hunting. (Not now anyway)
The location itself must make sense, no sense having a place/palace in the middle of nowhere and far from shops, etc or not having adequate security especially if you own a big piece of land.
When i asked about Setia developments, i was told it was developed to cater to certain groups (read locals) and only now they are starting to target the more affluent(read foreign) part of the market, whether it is folks from SG, other foreigners and even folks from KL who are posted here.
I was concerned about the spike in prices, as a realistic steady rise is much preferred to short lived spikes. I for one do not have intention to sell as i wanted to give them to my kids.
There will always be some form of corporate or hostel to house the people working here in the new developments. Of some interest to some folks i spoke to however are the potential students, the lecturers and also some folks in business in the SiLC area.
The rental market has been surprisingly interesting of late as i also thought previously that it would be bad and of low yield.
I have neighbours who just very recently rented out smaller semi-ds for 5k RM and one larger one for 7k plus which was an eye opener. These of course are the exception rather than the rule. Not all the folks bought them to rent out like in the case of those who bought units at the Golf.
There will always be the worry about Strata title no matter where one lives, people living in condos in SG are also having the same problem and only after years of being fed up with things are they starting to take action against recalcitrants like in the case of Castle Green. Unlike condos however, one does not have to worry about the lifts. Things like rubbish collection, land maintenance, etc have to be managed by a commitee who will run things.
I did pose this question to others before, being a major sceptic myself, please note that this comment by a local was very refreshing:
You need to realise something, not a lot of common folks in the market can afford to pay 300k or more for a terrace, 500k for a cluster or 800-1million for a semi-D.
Those who can do so and who are locals will have a deep stake in the place as they ploughed in a considerable amount of cash. Do you think they will stinge on the maintenance of their expensive property? If they wanted to, they could have bought houses just outside at the Bukit Indah side for half that or less what they paid here.
Even if things goes south, as long as there is a minimum core group, things can still be maintained. If not, whats the worse thing? Group those in your immediate area for maintenance, trash and security concerns.
There is no perfect scenario just like the old cliche saying, no one owes us a living, if we have to be self reliant and dependant on ourselves in SG with high cost of houses, high cost of living and high medical fees and we can make it there, why can't we make it here? No one owes us a living and if we are too afraid and paralysed to move or act, we will go the way of the dodo. Moving to JB is not the only option as i have always pointed out, its just the path i have taken.
Oh something from observation, seems recently there are some starting to market more JB houses in SG. There has always been but i am seeing more representation by SG folks. An example below:
http://www.iproperty.com.sg/propertylisting/893975/Horizon_Hills-Corner_Terrace-ForSale
